McKinley Point Academy

By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. ~Proverbs 24:3-4

• Oct. 12, 2008 - Outside the Box Field Trip

This week we took a field trip that is outside the expected.  We are studying Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures.  We finished up fish & sharks a few weeks ago and were in the middle of crustaceans. The book mentioned tanks of lobsters in restaurant or markets. That got me to thinking --- our local Asian grocery store has lots of tanks of live fish, crabs, lobsters, etc.  They also have lots of fresh seafood.  So we made a field trip to our local Asian grocery store.  It is was cheaper (except for the $$$ we spent on Chinese dumplings to take home) and it was a whole lot closer than an aquarium. So here are some of the sea animals we saw: first those on ice: - whole shrimp - a bunch of different fish - all whole - a cutup shark - an eel - squid - whelks - still in their shell - the sales person pulled the foot back so the kids could see him better - mussels?? I have a hard time remembering what all we saw! those crawling around on a table: - blue live crabs - we practiced identifying males and females those in cardboard boxes sitting on the floor: - lots of little snails those live in tanks: - lobsters - brown crabs - orange crab - elephant trunk clams - catfish - blackfish 2 empty tanks: - live eel - talipia We also checked out the frozen meat section to see other fish, squid, cuttlefish, etc. Okay, here are the pictures!  Some of the tanks were a little hard to see into.  Also it felt weird taking pictures in the store!! Catfish Some type of crab: This orange guy was in with the brown guys.  Don't know what kind he was. Blue crab lying on a table.  They were alive.  While we were looking a man came and picked up some with tongs, threw them in a paper bag, and took them to the cashier. Close-up of one.  The kids mostly saw females.  Someone told me later that the males taste the best so maybe that is why we didn't see any males on the table! Also called a geoduck, the elephant trunk clam - click here to read more. I figure when we eat all the Chinese dumplings, we will make another field trip and check out the mollusks, whelks, and squid this time.  We can also see if the empty tanks have anything!  Did I mention they also have a restaurant?  We are always up for lunch out -especially Chinese! Also related to our study of sharks, we did the salt water vs. regular water electricity experiment.  The kids enjoyed expanding the experiment and tried new ideas to see if they could get electricity to conduct.

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