By: Kevin T, staff writer
Wading through the ocean in wet suits, while trying to grab sandcrabs with giant tubes, Ms. Franzen’s Marine Biology class was given the assignment to monitor sandcrabs by identifying their size & gender According to Ms. Franzen, the assignment gave students the chance to do real investigative science using current scientific methods and protocols on February 16th.
Ms. Franzen has been doing this assignment with her class for over 20 years and thinks that it is one of the most successful ways to help students participate in hands-on science. “I think it is an effective assignment because students get to participate in hands-on science, not just read about it in a book. And of course there is the added bonus that both the students and I think it’s fun,” says Ms. Franzen.
The assignment started with all the students putting on wetsuits. Since it was the first time for all of the students wearing a wetsuit, it took everyone a little bit of time to adjust. According to the students, walking in the water with the suit on made them feel like the wetsuit was hugging or squeezing them really hard.
“The experience of wearing the suit was very surprising because it felt comfortable to walk in but felt weird when we entered the water. It was also hard to keep balance when wearing the suit in water, because of the waves occurring every minute,” recalls junior Susan W.
But once students were adjusted to their wetsuits, they were then told to grab big tubes that collected huge amounts of sand and dump them into wired strainers. Finally they would pour a bucket full of seawater into the strainer to wash away the sand and look for any sandcrabs.
Finally, students would measure the size of the sandcrab and record the length on their worksheet. They then repeated this process over and over again until it was time to go back to school.
Many students had a number of positive memories they took away from the assignment. Junior Jordan W. said, “[The best moment was] my groupmates randomly finding and trying to measure it without touching it was pretty funny.”
“A memorable moment would be when my group caught a big male sand crab. In our first attempt, we were only able to catch a small arm, but after a few more attempts, we were able to catch three more, where one was really big. It was hard to hold onto them to take measurements and check for gender, because of their pinching defense mechanism,” added Susan W.
In addition to the positive memories, students really enjoyed the chance to do an activity outside of class. Senior Larry K., said, “It was extremely fun being outside and in the water, and I got to learn what gender a sandcrab is just by looking at it.” Junior Alan H said, “It was fun because it was an actual hands-on activity outside of the classroom.”
