Fish Lab

As it so happens both my Marine Science and Life Science classes were studying fish around mid-term time, and since I had given them both tests a couple weeks before I decided to have their mid-term be a lab activity. Both classes focused on the external anatomy and groups of students each had a fish and needed to sketch their fish, label it's parts, and answer the questions about the material we had covered concerning fish anatomy.

I was pretty excited because while nearly all of my students frequently catch or clean fish, they really didn't understand the function of parts a fish's anatomy. For this activity I went to the local market and purchased some freshly caught reef fish and brought them to class for the activity.

Oh, suck it up. It's not that bad...

I so pleased at how well most of my students did with the activity, however I myself had a few lapses of judgment when I came to the realities of the lab. Allow me to demonstraight the simple idea I did not remember:

Fish + Tropical Climate + Time = NASTY

By the end of the first class the fishy smell in my room was getting pretty stanky. By the end of the day... well lets just say that it was potent. Some of the boys even took to wearing their i'e's (skirts) around their faces like surgical masks because they swore it was going to make them sick. They were being a little dramatic. However I did have to start wiping the fly eggs out of the fishes' eyes after the second class (vomit).

Yep, those white things - fly eggs.

But hey, if these are the sacrifices I have to make for my kids to learn, so be it. At least until they become maggots.