Squid for grade-schoolers...
Dec. 23rd, 2003 02:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
senoritafishYesterday, I had some help with the squid samples I was cutting. JW, who works the license counter, had brought her daughter in for the day, and she was getting tired of doing filing and shredding, so she asked me, "Are you doing anything gross in the wetlab? She'd probably enjoy that."
I said sure, and I'd let them know when I started. Cassandra joined me after she and her mom got back from lunch. I remembered she had come in and watched us process fish when on another school break. She was wearing a very nice red velvet dress, so I told her she could write down the number on the data sheet as I read the weights and lengths aloud from the scale and the measuring board. I showed her how to tell a male from a female (you can see eggs vs. spermatophores), and she then had to make a guess on what it was going to be before I cut open the mantle. She was right most of the time. You can often tell just by the size - males are often quite a bit larger and they have bigger heads in proportion to their bodies, except for the sneaker males - they're the small males that hang out on the edge of the school and occasionally manage to steal females from the larger, dominant males.
When I showed her how to get the statoliths (squid balance organs - something like your middle ear), she donned a pair of gloves and had to try it herself. I let her practice on ones we didn't have to keep and put them in a gelatin capsule to take home with her and show her friends. She did a very good job for a fifth grader; although she kept saying they smelled bad and felt gross when she picked them up, she kept going with it. Fifth grade was about the time I got interested in marine biology myself; she said she wants to be a doctor.
We were just finishing up when her mom came to collect her. Cassandra waved the capsule with statoliths in front of her mom's face and told her what they were. Mom rolled her eyes and told her, "I didn't need to know that!" as in, I'm glad you're enjoying yourself, but I don't need to know all the gory details.
Glad I can help foster a young person's interest in science. :)
I said sure, and I'd let them know when I started. Cassandra joined me after she and her mom got back from lunch. I remembered she had come in and watched us process fish when on another school break. She was wearing a very nice red velvet dress, so I told her she could write down the number on the data sheet as I read the weights and lengths aloud from the scale and the measuring board. I showed her how to tell a male from a female (you can see eggs vs. spermatophores), and she then had to make a guess on what it was going to be before I cut open the mantle. She was right most of the time. You can often tell just by the size - males are often quite a bit larger and they have bigger heads in proportion to their bodies, except for the sneaker males - they're the small males that hang out on the edge of the school and occasionally manage to steal females from the larger, dominant males.
When I showed her how to get the statoliths (squid balance organs - something like your middle ear), she donned a pair of gloves and had to try it herself. I let her practice on ones we didn't have to keep and put them in a gelatin capsule to take home with her and show her friends. She did a very good job for a fifth grader; although she kept saying they smelled bad and felt gross when she picked them up, she kept going with it. Fifth grade was about the time I got interested in marine biology myself; she said she wants to be a doctor.
We were just finishing up when her mom came to collect her. Cassandra waved the capsule with statoliths in front of her mom's face and told her what they were. Mom rolled her eyes and told her, "I didn't need to know that!" as in, I'm glad you're enjoying yourself, but I don't need to know all the gory details.
Glad I can help foster a young person's interest in science. :)
