Tidepool / Plankton
Three Hour Rotation | Tidepool Lab
In the Tidepool Lab students will discuss the lunar cycle, tides, currents, and the interaction between land and water which creates this unique habitat.
Using direct observation students learn about the abundance and types of algae and animal species in the area.
Discussion of the unique characteristics of tidal zones and their inhabitants further demonstrate adaptations, physiology, and ecology of tidepool biota. | | | | Plankton Using a sample collected in the tidepool lab, students use Video Microscopes to observe live plankton! Plankton is plants and animals that drift with the current; although plankton comes in all sizes, most is microscopic and it ranges form eggs and larvae to fully matured organisms. Divided up as teams, students look at their samples on monitors connected to microscopes and, using a plankton guide, identify the different types of plankton. Students are amazed at the diversity, and sometimes bizarre appearance, of organisms that they've unknowingly been surrounded by while snorkeling. All microscopes are also connected to a central monitor that the instructor can use to show all students the different types of plankton that students have identified: diatoms, dinoflagellates, copepods, fish eggs and invertebrate larvae among many others. Instructors also lead students in a discussion of the food web, of which plankton act as the base, and some effects pollution has on the world's oceans.
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