When a stranger asks questions in an elementary school classroom and nearly all the hands shoot up with each query, it’s a sure bet the students are excited about the topic under discussion.
That’s the way it was with Jean Giberson’s fourth-fifth grade class in West Harpswell School when students shared their enthusiasm for their new marine Touch Tank and the critters that have been living in it this year.
The students told about how they have watched a juvenile lobster molt and hide out for a week until its shell hardened, observed a sea star growing a new leg and have watched as one wrapped itself around a green crab and consumed the unfortunate creature. They are eager to explain how the sea star extended its stomach to accomplish this. They can enthusiastically point out a scallop’s row of eyes, that “look like kiwi seeds,” and pick one up to show that it can spit as far as four feet in just about any direction, “So, look out!” They can determine the sex of a horseshoe crab and know how to place small pieces of scallop next to its mouth to feed it.
Students know the names of each critter, like the Northern sea anemone, the toad crab and the various types of sea stars, and they know why a sea cucumber is in the same family (echinoderm), as sea stars and sea urchins.
Giberson’s students, who willingly arrive early or stay after school to care for the tank, have been captivated since the day it arrived, and their enthusiasm doesn’t seem to have diminished. “Sometimes they’re too interested in it,” she says. “I have to drag them away.”
Fourth grade teacher Jan Driver of Woolwich Central School says her students have been equally enthusiastic during the two-month residence of a tank brought by the Department of Marine Resources’ Officer SALTY Program, which is designed to educate Maine’s coastal youth about the ocean and its marine life. While the aquarium is in the classroom, a Marine Patrol Officer makes five visits to teach children about species living in the Gulf of Maine. Driver says during this time, students put a sticker on the glass across from a sea anemone to determine if it moved at all. “Every morning they would make a bee line to the aquarium to see if anything new had happened overnight,” she says. “Parents have told me that at home, all they heard was ‘The tank, the tank, the tank.'”
Giberson’s state-of-the-art Touch Tank evolved from the “Officer SALTY” program. For years, marine wardens have been lugging a regular fish tank around from school to school for its two-month residence, filling it with creatures from the Marine Resources Aquarium in Booth-bay Harbor each time, then taking the animals back to the aquarium at the end of each visit. Metal parts of the tank have rusted quickly and its sides are too high to allow easy access for students, who have to stand on a chair and reach down to handle animals.
Seeing how successful the program was with her students, Giberson was impelled to design a better tank and find a way to have it in her classroom full time. After many inquiries, she connected with Jim Harris of Marine Environments, Inc. of Biddeford, and they began a process of developing specifications for a user-friendly tank. The model Giberson has (specs can be customized) holds 75 gallons and contains a system that has all the equipment necessary to maintain a healthy environment for marine animals. Its height and low sides provide easy access for students. The tank and base are made of acrylic.
When DMR Shellfish Warden Jon Hentz, who covers Arrowsic, Phippsburg, Georgetown, Woolwich, West Bath and Phippsburg, first saw the tank, he immediately realized its worth as a teaching tool and spread the word among the schools in his area. Now, each school is mounting a campaign to buy tanks, which Marine Environments retails for $5,800, but is offering to Maine schools for $4,800 each if two are ordered. This includes set-up and delivery.
Driver says Peg Howell, a parent volunteer in her Woolwich classroom, has sent applications with student letters extolling the virtues of the tanks to several foundations asking for grants to fund one for their classroom. Phippsburg included one-half the cost of a tank in its school budget, and other schools are getting organized to raise money. One tank may be shared by Phippsburg and Woolwich, one-half year each, and another by Georgetown and West Bath, but Driver says she hopes she can raise enough money to keep a tank in her classroom all year. (Money for Giberson’s tank was raised by the West Harpswell Parent Teacher Organization.)
Giberson says having the prototype tank year-round in her classroom has forged strong connections between the school and parents (several are fishermen) and other local fishermen who bring in any new and interesting creatures that turn up in their traps and nets. Fishermen have brought in a blue lobster, an orange lobster with black spots, different types of crabs and sea stars, and their most unusual find, a sea mouse, a type of marine worm with hairs that are used in fiber optic research. (Giberson has a special permit from DMR to keep these animals in the tank.)
Students feed the animals, keep the tank and protein skimmer clean and help add five gallons of water each week. Giberson adds salt to the water and tests it periodically to maintain a favorable environment. The old tank was more labor intensive, needing 20 gallons of ocean water each week. Also, Driver says, its aeration system is so noisy it distracts children and sometimes has to be turned off.
Students in Giberson’s class are very protective of their tank. No nail polish, no perfumed soap, they say. Wash your hands and be gentle when you pick up the animals.
Joe Zucchero, representative for Marine Environments, whose primary business has been lobster tanks for restaurants, says the company plans to market the Touch Tanks all over the country. Many schools in Maine have expressed interest in purchasing one, but they need money. “We’re trying to find some grants to help schools, partially at least,” Zucchero says. The Portland Children’s Museum plans to install one this summer.
Giberson says the Touch Tank has been “one of the best educational tools” she’s ever had. Driver agrees. “If people saw what this tank did and how it inspires the students, there would be no question about funding it,” she says. “The students might forget me in ten years, but not the tank.”
For further information, visit www.marineenv.com/TouchTanks/TouchTanks.htm. To donate funds for a Touch Tank, contact any of the schools mentioned.