Ms. Frizzle

So, I don't know what you guys think of when I say the name Ms. Frizzle, but if it sparks your memory to your childhood days and the beloved Magic School Bus series, then you hit the nail on the head. Last week, I felt like I was in some way related to Ms. Frizzle. We've been studying oceanography in 6th grade this semester, so last week we went to a beach in Samana and studied the ocean coral. Who gets to do these kind of things. I've never snorkled before, but as I was staring at the beauty of the coral, I couldn't get that silly made up science teacher out of my head. We had an amazing trip.

We all learned tons, myself included. We also got to help our marine biologist do some reefcheck stuff. We would tape measure areas, then count the fish, coral, sea urchins, and red algae. So that next year they'll have a bench mark to see how the populations are changing. Apparantly when people started visiting this beach about 10 years ago, all of the fish got trapped and killed. Since they are the protectors of the coral, the red algae moved in and killed most of the coral. Last years trip saw nothing but algae. This year we saw nothing but sea urchins because they came in and ate all of the coral. So now the ground is clear for the coral to hopefully come back and thrive once again.

Anyway, they had an amazing experience. These kids have never ever gotten to camp before they came to this school. The maternal society is very evident when you have to live with the kids. Mothers baby their children so much, especially the boys, that I felt like a mother because they were so needy as far as building fire, cooking, sleeping, yada yada. All in all, successful trip.
Andrew