Opstad otters visit their namesake at aquarium
February 3, 2010
By Laura Geggel
NEW — 10:47 a.m. Feb. 3, 2010
Opstad fourth-grade students (from left) Rebecca Garland, Jacob Randall, Payton Barnett, Christian Holler and Clayton Waltz explore tidal pool creatures in the touch tank at the Seattle Aquarium. (Photo contributed)
The otters were swimming on their backs, lying lazily on top of one another in the tank at the Seattle Aquarium.
Around them, 85 Opstad Elementary School fourth-graders grinned like crazy, eager to see their school animal get a shrimp snack.
“It was fun seeing our school mascot,” Hannah Buzard said. “It was fun seeing them get fed.”
Her favorite part was watching sea life flit through the water behind the aquarium’s thick glass tanks.
“It’s fun to watch how they move and stuff, how they interact,” Buzard said.
After a unit studying invertebrates, Opstad Elementary’s fourth-graders took a daylong field trip to the aquarium Jan. 26.
Aquarium staff gave them a tour of touch tanks and took them through the aquarium, showing them fish, puffins, otters, sea horses, harbor seals and more.
The aquarium fits into the fourth-grade unit covering structures of life and ecosystems.
“A lot of the kids have never been to the ocean and seen a tide pool,” fourth-grade teacher Karen Eddy said. “They may have been to a beach, but they haven’t seen tidal-pool animals.”
Some sea creatures look different, like the sea anemones with their tentacles waving in the current. Many children expect animals to have eyes, something the sea anemone lacks, Eddy said.
“The kids were all about animals and living creatures and guessing, ‘Is that a plant or an animal?’” Eddy said. “It’s really neat for them to look at sea life, because it’s such an important part of Puget Sound.”
Quinn VanBuren said she liked the sea anemones.
“It was cool because when you touched them, their little suckers would grab your finger,” VanBuren said.
An eight-legged lady named Buster held their attention when they passed by her tank.
“They were fascinated by the octopus,” Eddy said. “She put on quite a show.”
Baylor Sherril remembered how Buster changed color, from white to red and then orange, as she ate her meal. Christian Holler said the octopus had 1,600 suckers total on her many arms.
“Everyone was expecting to see fish, not harbor seals and starfish,” Amanda Acker said.
Sherril agreed.
“We got to touch starfish and sea anemones,” he said. “There were also shrimp and crabs and flat fish. The crab, I thought it was a rock. I didn’t know it was a crab until it moved.”
Acker said her favorite animal — the cowfish — was a yellow hue and had horns much like its namesake.
Holler favored the wolf eel, though it is neither a wolf nor an eel.
“He’s a fish,” Holler said.
Students filled out a scavenger hunt work packet during the field trip and were helped by chaperones, whom Eddy thanked for their support.
Even with smaller budgets this year, Opstad teachers made sure the trip happened. Normally, Opstad’s PTA pays for transportation for the annual aquarium field trip, but it had to cut back this year when a walkathon didn’t raise enough money.
Instead, students paid $13.50 for the bus and their aquarium ticket. Scholarships were available for students in need, Eddy said.
Laura Geggel: 392-6434, ext. 221, or lgeggel@snovalleystar.com.
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