Los Angeles County Marine Science Floating Lab

Marine Science Floating Lab was featured this morning in the Channel 5 Morning News. Check it out.

Great Stuff! The Think Earth Foundation has been an excellent partner for the Marine Science Floating Lab. The T.E.F. Think Watershed project provides funding for many schools to participate. Over the years Think Earth has produced some excellent resources for environmental science and stewardship education. Check out these new resources and pass them along! Happy Earth Day!

Hooray for collaboration and partnership!

Butterfly Ray ! We caught and released a beautiful butterfly ray (Gymnura marmorata) this week! These beautiful fish can grow quite large. We do not catch them very often, so this is a real treat. Check out the range where butterfly rays are commonly found with a little online searching. Share what you find out!

Dear Los Angeles County Educators, This looks like a great and timely opportunity - great connection to the Watershed concepts that are so important to us! Check it out. Heal the Bay invites you to attend one or more of the FREE special focus Project WET workshops they are offering this Fall and early Winter. The next workshop will focus on Project WET activities that will engage students in the study of the ‘Waterscape of the Los Angeles Basin.’ Each workshop is designed ...to maximize participant time experiencing Project WET activities to engage your students, while also giving you the opportunity to learn about current regional water issues as an educator while also demonstrating how to integrate the knowledge and activities relevant to these issues into the Common Core and Next Generation Science classroom. Please RSVP for your workshop(s) of choice at: http://keytothewatershedpwet.eventbrite.com Thank you! - Brian Brian Brown, California Project WET Coordinator Water Education Foundation 1401 21st Street, Suite 200 Sacramento, CA. 95811 [email protected] (916) 444-6240- Phone (916) 448-7699- FAX www.watereducation.org

Who Am I? Can you identify this fish? This beautiful fish was caught and released on the Marine Science Floating Lab in San Pedro Bay last week. Hint: We are being very careful holding this fish - a closer look at the spines is a clue to the species!

Sarcastic Fringehead We were really lucky to observe this fascinating little fish. Do a little search and see if you can find out more about this fish with the unusual name!

http://www.lacoe.edu//Portals/0/Bulletins/3912.pdf We are taking sign-ups for the Marine Science Floating Lab! Please check with the office for dates, locations, and more details!

The Marine Science Floating Lab provides excellent field study for high school students. Here are some student comments from a recent trip organized by Jeff Orlinsky of Warren High School. I actually understand the size and quantity of plankton now. I now know what is meant by fish morphology.... It was fun to actually hold and observe the fish directly instead of reading about the parts in a book. Warren High School Downey, CA

Next Generation Science Standards are a great match for Environmental Education - check out this article emphasizing these connections.

Polychaete Worm The bottom sediment sample that we collect with the mud grabber may contain really interesting specimens. This week we observed a sea squirt, but no one got a photo! Check out these magnified images of a polychaete worm - something we see quite a lot. This one was about 3 cm long. Notice the segmented body with bristles. At first they are hard to spot in the mud but careful groups often find them. Some people call them bristle worms. Can you find out what types of worms they are related to and what they eat?

Kelp Crab We have been seeing a lot of tiny kelp crabs in the trawl. They are in clumps of kelp that come up in the net. I am learning that the color of these crabs is dependent on the type of algae that they have been eating!

Navanax What a great example of the diversity of life in the marine environment! Navanax inermis is a predatory sea slug that can be found in San Pedro Bay. Take some time to learn more about them! Some organisms are adapted to blend in to the environment to avoid detection - why is the navanax so colorful? What does it eat? What can you learn about its adaptations and life cycle?