Hatfield Marine Science Center homeschool day

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The two girls and I were up early this morning and heading to the coast! Hatfield Marine science center had their homeschool day today and it sounded like it would be fun! We drove a while then hopped out of the car in Depot Bay, Oregon to appreciate the beautiful fall morning at the coast!
We checked out the waves a bit then headed on to our destination.
We got split into three different groups, and we were off to do some science!

First stop was Denizens of the Deep...The kids learned all about some of the different adaptations fish had in the deep sea and then got to make their own "deep sea fish".




 I need to try and get a better picture of Kaitlyn's under a black light, but Arianna's showed up pretty well! You notice the Lure it uses to attract it's food, the lights around it's eyes to help it see better and of course all the pretty bio-luminescent defense and alarm system (you know to attract a larger prey item than the one that's trying to eat it so it might escape!).  After that it was lunch and some free time to explore the visitor center before the rest of the activities.


Once groups started back up it was time to learn about marking and release/recapture to estimate marine populations...
Doesn't she look like an excited bean counter! It was a rather difficult for some of the families with the younger kids to try and get sample marked and added back into the population and then try and estimate how many total..My kids now have a better idea of what a grind this could be and have decided that probably being a fish counter wouldn't be a great job for them to have. LOL.
Of course after learning how to figure out populations it was time to dissect a few samples!





Arianna says "You know, I don't like dissecting as much as I thought I would". They both did great though and are looking forward to another trip there at some point :)

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