Meet the Scientist: Reyhan Mehran, Marine Biologist

Coloring a 20 foot great white shark is exhausting.

K students research sea critters to see if they can live in the class aquarium. With the support of staff and parent volunteers Jia and Jillian, each student has a chance to use books and the internet to find out about their animal of choice. Ranging from jellies to sea stars to great white sharks, students wind up making a life size model of their animals.

Students wrote about questions that they still had.

How do shells get on the ground?

How does the water go?

How does Reyhan know/learn about animals?

How does the ocean get its water?

For the second year in a row,  Reyhan Mehran, a parent and a marine biologist showed up to answer student questions.  (A favorite:  How many people have walked on the beach?)

Reyhan mobbed by scientist groupies.

More Questions:

Viggo:  How do you become a fish scientist?

How Fish Learn

Elliott:  Do daddy sharks take care of baby sharks?

Meitar:  How do baby fish learn to take care of their babies when they get older?

Danielle:  How do fish communicate together?

Fish & Feelings

Oliver:  Fish sad?  blue?

August:  Do fish have feelings...like sad or happy?

Fish Behavior

Zachary: Why do fish swim in different directions?  Do fish sleep?

Who Lives Where?

Devon: Are there fish that live under the sand?

Kai: Are there snakes that live in the sand?

Thea: Can sea creatures live in the sand?

Makua:  Why do some fish need salt water?

Julius:  How long do crabs live out of the water?

Types of and Numbers of Animals that live in ocean

Julian:  What animals live in the ocean?

Dashwood:  How many fish live in the ocean?

Penelope:  How many people have walked on the sand?  WOW!!!!

Nola:  What kinds of birds live in the ocean?

Food 

Benji:  Why do sharks eat big animals like eels or moose?  Why not little animals...like little fish?

Avery:  What does a rainbow fish eat?

SHELLS...How do shells help animals?

Aurora:  What are shells made of and how do they get bigger?

Clare:  What kind of animals live in shells?  

Amelia:  How do you know what kind of animal lived in a shell?

Seen at Recess

Oyster Update

In November, 2017,  Robert Buchanan of BOP dropped off two new cages of oysters...10 strings in each.  By Boat! How cool is that!

In December 2017, Josh's and Cora's class checked on our oysters. 

We took the baseline data on the oysters.

Then we returned, on May 25, 2018.

This time Nneka's class took the lead.

 To our horror...not one oyster was alive.  Not even a single oyster drill.

 We decided to clean the cages and the oysters.  

Robert Pincus, scientist and BNS parent, decided to sort and have students photograph shells.  Could we get clues from their condition as to the cause of their death?

 We collected data on water chemistry, temperature and turbidity.

Another scientist, and BNS parent, Barent Roth helped students survey plastic that they found earlier in the year.  And collect and analyze new samples.

Some Student Photographs

Sad to say not much life.  A dead shrimp was found.

Update:  Robert Buchanan reported that there was a lot of die off this winter.  .