The Aquarium!!!!!!

On Tuesday the 27th Rm 13 and Rm 14 went to the Portebello Marine Aquarium, for our coast to coast inquiry investigation.

Firstly, we hopped off the bus and walked down the slippery path steep path, and sat down in the conference area and ate our morning tea while the staff were talking to us about what lives in the Dunedin City harbor.

Secondly we spilt into our 3 groups and trotted out of the conference area. And my group went to the touch tank first and 1 of the staff told us about the octopus, seahorse, pigfish, sea stars and many more. Did you know that some fish can actually spit out their guts and intestines to protect it's self

Then we went to the lab where we watched Luara (one of the staff) show us some Zooplankton and that 70-80 percent of the worlds air comes from Zooplankton! We had a look through some microscopes at some weird but amazing sea creatures. The sea cucumber looked like a long slinky except in a bowl.

Finally we went to our the two big fish tanks, and in the first tank there were some fish and some baby salmon. And in the other tank there were some mini sharks but they were actually big dog fish!! And some fish that catch their prey from the bottom of the floor! (ambush predators) On the top of the roof was a huge life size model of the Colossal squid with it's huge beady eyes, and the beak it was MASSIVE and it was reflecting of the water.

To conclude we went back to the conference area and talked about all the sea creatures and how speacial they are and the food chains. Finally we hopped on the bus again and speed back to school.

BY OLIVIA GREEN!!!!