Aquarim visit

On Tuesday the 27th of April Rm 13 and 14 took a long trip in the giant school bus to the Portibelo marine Aquarium part of our coast to coast inquiry. Firstly we jumped of the bus like a pack of jumping beans and wandered down the path and into the Portibelo Aquarium. We had shivers of excitement springing up some of our spines.

Then we all gathered into a conference and sat down and had a nibble of mourning tea, to eat while the instructors talked to us about what might live out in the harbor and what they eat. Then after our brief descution we all scattered into our 3 groups.

Then we went to the touch tanks and talked about what lies beneath the tanks. The tanks were like little tiny rock pools. The we looked at the giant octopus and how it can be poisoniss. After that we looked at the spiny sea star and how it picks up cocals raps its arms around it and finally the cocals weaken its shell and lets go and the spiny sea star gets a tasty snack.

Then we felt the star fish, sea stars with slimy sea cucumber and learnt that if a predator picked it up it would through out its guts and crawls away and grows new guts. Our next stop was the room with a TV and we looked at how tiny zooplankton is. It looked like tiny stars glistening in the night sky. Laura the staff member/ instructor showed us the seaweed how it moves to the sun. The seaweed looked so slimy it looked as if it was smeared with oil all over it. Then she said how an average sized mussel drinks 7 letres per hour. wow. Then we looked through the microscopes. We had to have peering eyes looking and learnt that 70% of our water comes from zooplankton.

our last station was out in the shivering cold. We looked at the flowing pond like pools and saw a colossal squid luring above the water with its giant eyes starring into yours. it was kind of creepy. There were weird but amazing creatures there. We also looked at a kina and how it covers itself in its own food, then we felt a spiny dog fish/shark. One way it was spiky and the other way it was as smooth as the clear smooth water of a harbor. Then we walked slowly up the path past a stuffed seal and then back into the conference room. We listened carefully and talked about what eats what and marine things we humans eat. It was a brief talk. Then Max said thank you then we all clattered outside into the cooling drizzle and the frocolis wind and up the steep steps an up the slab of concrete and into the warm bus. I had a marvelous time and the best part of all was when we got to feel things in the rock pools and learnt lots of facts. what a day we had!