THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 7, 1996 TAG: 9603070435
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CAMDEN LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
The Virginia Marine Science Museum's Mac McFeely had a pretty good idea of what to expect when the traveling show pulled into Grandy Primary School.
The schoolchildren would enjoy hearing about sea creatures they may or may not have seen before, and they'd get a big thrill from touching the crabs and sea stars a little later in the marine lab.
And the northern puffer, or ``blow toad,'' would steal the show as it always did by unleashing a body's worth of water on the crowds.
``That's all they can talk about the rest of the day. They forget everything else you told them,'' McFeely said Tuesday just before fellow traveling teacher Richard J. Contreras Jr. began the first assembly of the day.
But this time the fish remained bloated, refusing to cooperate. Even so, the Grandy pupils had plenty of excitement.
``I thought it was going to be like all the crabs pinching stuff and him accidentally dropping them,'' Kurtina Paul, 9, said about Contreras' lecture.
``I was glad he didn't 'cause I didn't want them to bite my toes.''
Toe-biting by territorial animals was just one tidbit that seemed to stand out from the lectures and demonstrations in this museum-on-wheels.
``Life in the Chesapeake Bay'' is part of the Virginia Beach museum's educational unit and focuses on invertebrates and back-boned animals, as well as a few aquatic oddities, found in local waters.
``It's a resource that's available. I like anything that sparks the imagination,'' said Martha Wickre, the Camden County school system's community schools coordinator who arranged the trip.
The marine-lab-in-a-truck brings the ocean to schoolchildren as a way to better educate the public about marine life. It travels throughout Virginia, the Washington, D.C., area and northeastern North Carolina.
It was a first for the Camden school, located near the Albemarle Sound and about a 45-minute drive from the ocean.
``Even though they're from around the waters here, they haven't seen a lot of these kinds of animals before because they are hard to find,'' Contreras said after the first of two 45-minute assemblies.
About 375 kindergarten through third-graders at Grandy occasionally squirmed and screamed as Contreras introduced them to plastic dolphins, whale parts, shark jaws and, most especially, live animals.
The ``aaahs'' that began with snails and a hermit crab developed into a crescendo of shrills as Contreras picked up a large spider crab and plopped it on his head.
``Why are you screaming? I'm not going to drop him,'' he told the crowd as he brought a huge crab closer for inspection.
The horseshoe crab, he instructed the children, has been around for millions of years and is considered a ``living fossil.'' Like insects, it sees multiple images.
``Think about it: If you were a horseshoe crab going to school and you looked to the front of the classroom, you wouldn't see one teacher. You'd see 500 TEACHERS!''
The children giggled.
The finale was the puffer, a fish that fills with water to prevent it from being easily eaten by predators.
``I was hoping my puffer would let loose on them, but it didn't,'' Contreras said.
The assemblies were followed by seven-minute visits to the marine lab in a short truck outside the school auditorium. There, children had a chance to view fish up close and touch some of the animals.
And what did children glean from the lectures and experiences?
``We'll know not to step on certain things. We'll know not to lose a toe,'' said Marsha Rinck, 9.
Classmate Jennifer Park, 9, said she's now less afraid of sea creatures ``because he wouldn't have put them on his head if they were going to hurt you.''
Even the adults in the audience learned a thing or two.
``There were a lot of things I hadn't seen before,'' said Bethany Godfrey, a resource assistant. ``I think I'm more informed, but I'll be careful where I walk in the sand.'' by CNB