The past two days have been two really fun field trips - both for very different reasons. Yesterday, I had a group of 7th graders come to VIMS that when I saw them at their school a week prior, were not interested AT ALL in coming on a field trip dealing with marine science. They didn't want to get in the water, didn't want to hold any animals, etc. etc. But I pumped them up as much as I could at school, and convinced them all that they wouldn't want to miss it - and they all came!! But when they got to VIMS, 1/2 of the class still wasn't planning on coming into the water! I mean I KNEW what was going to happen - they'd get down to the water, see their friends in the water having fun, and want to get in themselves. And what happened? That exactly. So not only did one girl face her extreme fears of going in the water, but she had a great time and I even ended up with a hug at the end of the trip. But
my favorite moment was with one of the boys that was too cool for school at first, didn't want to hurt his image by being into the marine science trip, but after 5 minutes at VIMS he was hooked. The microscopes, the tanks, the animals, the nets, he couldn't get enough. It was just very rewarding!
Then today, another fun trip but not for the same reason. Today, we caught ALL of the fun things that we usually don't see that often. Some of them we catch every once in a while, or we'll catch one of these things, but usually not ALL of them on the same trip. It was crazy - every 5 minutes another scream as the kids found something exciting.
We caught, four - count 'em FOUR - seahorses (one of which was a baby and the rest were HUGE), a puffer (my favorite), a giant flounder, 10 or so HUGE blue crabs, and wait for it....a Broad clawed hermit crab. Which may not sound exciting to you, but it is something I've NEVER seen down here. It was at least 3.5-4" big and in a huge whelk shell! And the teacher found it just sitting on the intake pipe for the seawater lab. On the pipe! It was crazy. She was super excited to catch it b/c she knew it was a find! So exciting times the past few field trips. :)
4 comments:
haha the picture of you with the puffer is awesome :) glad the kids enjoyed it so much, it's probably b/c you're so awesome at your job ;)
aww cute! i was going to say that i love the first picture as soon as i saw it. haha and then saw amber's comment. hilarious picture! glad you had 2 great days! yay
sidenote: it's crazy to me that you're wearing long sleeves and fleece at that. wow.
I wasn't wearing fleece...just a lightweight hoodie. It's been chilly in the morning down at the water!
That is absolutely amazing! I still can't believe all this stuff.
And that poor little upside-down puffer. You probably poked it with your finger to get it to puff up. Poor guy.
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