The seventh graders, along with Mrs. Dwyer, Mrs. Keegan and Mrs. Sabatino, have returned from a marvelous evening at the Long Beach aquarium!  We spent our first hour shopping in the gift shop and then wandering through the exhibits, touching rays, anemones, and starfish.  Once our official program began we viewed a wide variety of sea life: sea otters, sea lions, seals, sharks, rays, giant crabs and lobsters, fragile-looking weedy dragons, seahorses, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers (did you know that they eject their entire intestinal tract when frightened and then regenerate it later?)   We visited with a diver cleaning the artificial coral in one of the largest tanks, and then later went behind the scenes to feed seaweed to these tank dwellers.  We took a walk out onto the dock with flashlights and collected plankton samples, which we later viewed under microscopes.  We visited the shark lagoon touch tank and then spent some time learning about the larger sharks at the aquarium.  Our evening ended with a 3D movie focused upon caring for ocean environments and their inhabitants, and after that we went to sleep on the floor in one of two exhibit areas: the Tropical Reef and the Northern Pacific.  After breakfast this morning we spent some time watching the two juvenile male sea lions as they enjoyed a morning of wrestling and biting each other.

Everyone had a wonderful time and learned so much!