Physical Distancing STEM Break with Ms. Meghan: Fun with Fish

Did you know that your Galesburg Public Library card allows you to check out e-books and audio books through the Libby app? All you need is your library card and your PIN (your birth date in MMDDYYYY format) and you'll be on your way to reading on your phone or tablet!

I'll be pairing up Libby books for GPL patrons with STEM activities, live webcams, educational programs, and citizen science projects.

Right now? The human world, it's a mess. So, let's go have some


Fun with Fish!

Coral reefs are incredible marine habitats and some of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet!

 
Read:
There are a number of books about marine life that you can borrow from Libby, including The Brilliant Deep by Kate Messner, Wild Sea Creatures by Chris and Martin Kratt, and On the Ocean Floor by Joanna Cole.


Watch: A lot of aquariums have large coral reef habitats filled with fish, coral, and sometimes even sea turtles! The Monterey Bay Aquarium is in California, and they have a live webcam on their Coral Reef habitat. The Georgia Aquarium has a webcam on their Indo-Pacific Barrier Reef habitat.

Observe: After checking out the closeups on the Monterey camera, switch over to the Georgia one. We'll be doing a point count of the marine life we see. With your imagination, draw a line going left to right, through the middle of the tank (please do not draw on the screen). Each half of the screen is a plot. Have an adult set a timer for 20 seconds or count 20 Mississippi's. How many different types of fish do you see in each plot? How many different types of coral? Are there big differences between one plot and the other? Why do you think that might be? Are the numbers different at different times of the day?