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Aquatic Nursery

 

Aquatic Nursery: Science Hatchery
Science Hatchery is a special program that provides research experiences in a marine nursery. We teach K-12 grade level students how to foster and nurture local marine animals in our Aquatic Nursery, a unique laboratory-on-exhibit where we grow young sea animals and young scientists. Students can exercise their investigative skills as they conduct short sampling and measurement activities focused on baby animals that are raised for conservation, food, or research.

Exhibit/activity areas include:
Sea Chef: In the Aquaculture Kitchen, food like brightly colored microalgae and baby brine shrimp, also known as “sea monkeys,” grown for the nursery animals needs to be “cooked up” and prepared.
Sea Food: Plankton samples from the Kitchen are taken to the Growing for Human Food area, where abalone and oysters are raised.
Nurture Nature: Babies often do not resemble their parents, so we will observe and measure growth of baby animals in the Conservation area of the Nursery, where we help species that are in trouble in the wild.
Research and Rearing: Find out what kinds of food are necessary for normal body development as students try to “match the hatch” for tiny sea jellies in our Research area where animals are raised to share for teaching and research.

Programs by Grade Level:
Sea Gardeners (K-2): Students will use models, photographs, and live animals to compare babies to their parents, identify anatomy of a developing animal, learn about naturally occurring variations in sea jellies, and draw a picture of a nursery baby next to a simple story of a day in its life.
Young Investigators (Grades 3-6): Students will investigate how to feed baby animals and then report and illustrate their findings. They will sample from large tanks of microscopic plankton, count animals in a sample, and predict the change in the population over time. This plankton sample will be used to feed to animals throughout the activity to see how much food is necessary for normal growth and to see how dissolved oxygen and carbon dioxide change when there is an abundance of plankton in the water.
Research Assistants (Grades 7-12): Students will collect data and write a brief report on investigations into plankton population ecology using simple lab equipment. They will determine the best temperature for breeding and learn about how to use freezing liquid nitrogen to cryogenically preserve gametes to do in vitro fertilization to make new babies.

Logistics for Aquatic Nursery visits:

Offered: Year-round
Program length: 50 minutes
Grade level: Pre-K - Adult
Offered: Tuesday through Friday (weekends by special arrangement)
Fee: One large bag of aluminum cans per class.
Reservations: Call 310/548-7562, 8 am -5 pm, Monday through Friday

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