Spring 2010 - Flat Stanley on the Sea

-Written for Anya Z for her 2nd grade Flat Stanley class project.

Today was another early morning for the sake of science! Flat Stanley and I donned our our suits and grabbed our snorkels, fins and towels. And we jumped in a boat! My invertebrate zoology class had a field trip where we were looking for invertebrate specimens. When we got to the boat place, they suggested we borrow their wetsuits, because the water was cold!

Flat Stanley on the boat with mangroves behind.

So we suited up (wetsuited up, that is) and hit the waves. We were in Biscayne Bay, so on one side was Key Biscayne and other Keys, and other was Miami. It was really fun. Soon we came to a sand bar, an area where the water was shallower, and we began to explore that. There were some corals on the surface along with some seagrass. Did you know that coral isn’t a rock or a plant, but actually a bunch of tiny creatures that are related to jelly fish?

Coral we found.

We found an eggsac that looked really cool, and once we shoveled up some sand, we found funny creatures called sipunculans which look like worms. Somebody even saw a sting ray! I really liked finding a sea urchin which covered itself with seashells for protection. Sea urchins move using their long spines to propel them forward, and a sticky substance at the end helped them hold the shells on. I thought it was a rock at first, that’s how many shells it had on it. I hoped we’d find a decorator crab. That’s a crab that uses sea anemones to help it eat, by holding them in its pinchers. Pretty smart for animals without a backbone, huh?

Our specimens, including sea urchins.

The water was super cold. I raced back to the boat to take some pictures of everyone coming back with our specimens. Then we looked at what we caught and threw back some things which would do better in the ocean. Our teacher fell into the water while trying to clean out a cooler!

Shivering, we carried back our specimens.

Then we got going to our second site of the day, a place near the mangroves. It was really cool. Mangroves are a type of tree that can survive in salt water for various reason. They have really big roots which prop them up out of the water. They are called “prop roots.” There are lots of snails growing on mangrove roots.

Mangroves.

They also found a few more urchins and stuff, but most of us were so cold we couldn’t look very well. After all, to snorkel, you should have your face underwater, right? Have you ever gotten brain freeze from eating something cold? Well, today I got brain freeze just from sticking my head underwater! How cold! We got out of the water pretty quickly, because it was so cold, but not before taking a picture of ourselves with the Miami skyline in the background. Very pretty.

Representing "the U" in muddy mangrove waters.

As we started back for the marina (it’s like a parking lot for boats), someone shouted “hey look, a dolphin!” and sure enough, there was a dolphin to our left, jumping through the waves. A perfect end to a boat ride. Of course, we all went out for lunch afterwards, being quite hungry. We got pizza. I have to say, Miami is awesome, mainly for the ocean, but nothing beats Chicago pizza. Make sure to give Stanley a slice when he gets home, he’ll be missing it!

Hello pretty dolphin!