Marine & Freshwater Environmental Education
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What do you call a person that collects sea shells?
In the most amateur sense you would call yourself a shell collector…However, considering the fact that you are not just collecting for the sake of collecting (although you may be), but to study the specimens (even if it may be in the most primitive sense), therefore, you can call yourself a conchologist. A person that […]
What is the fastest fish in the sea?
The world’s fastest fish is the Indo-Pacific sailfish, Istiophorus platypterus. This sport fish can swim up to 68 miles per hour by standards (a cheetah can run up to 70 miles per hour). Check out this incredible video from PBS which aired in August of 2010. Marine biologist, Rick Rosenthal, witnesses a rare moment of […]
More than One Week
Tomorrow is the final day for National Environmental Education Week! It is a special week in schools because all of those children with an aptitude for understanding concepts with examples about nature have finally been able to comprehend all those complex topics they might otherwise have found overwhelming simply because the examples used in class […]
Facts about ‘Finding Dory’ friends
Maybe it’s because I’m a full-time teacher now, but my favorite character in Finding Dory is the Sting Ray. I mean, if it wasn’t for the class trip to learn about migration Dory – the blue tang with short-term memory loss – may never had thought about “going home” and the trek to look for […]
A Few Lines from Rehoboth Beach by Fleda Brown
Dear friend, you were right: the smell of fish and foam and algae makes one green smell together. It clears my head. It empties me enough to fit down in my own skin for a while, singleminded as a surfer. The first day here, there was nobody, from one distance to the other. Rain rose […]
Why is the blood of horseshoe crabs blue?
Horseshoe crabs use hemocyanin to distribute oxygen throughout their bodies. Hemocyanin is copper-based and gives the animal its distinctive blue blood. We use an iron-based hemoglobin to move oxygen around. The blood of this living fossil has the ability to clot in an instance when it detects unfamiliar germs, therefore building up protective barriers to […]
Who has the longest commute in the sea?
An animal lives to eat and breed. In order to do this, some animals that call the ocean habitat ‘home’ have to travel great distances to find food or reach a particular breeding ground. Here is a breakdown of some of the most impressive migrations in and around the sea. Perhaps the longest migration of […]
Take a guess! What do you think this lobsta weighs?
Image (c) Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. Do you have another good question for the Beach Chair Scientist? Go to http://www.beachchairscientist.com and let us know. Or you can e-mail your question to info@beachchairscientist.com.
What is shark finning?
There has been a lot in the news recently about shark finning. It’s the inhumane practice of capturing a shark, slicing its fins off (shark fin soup is an expensive delicacy popular at Chinese weddings and Chinese New Year celebrations), and tossing the rest of the animal overboard to bleed out a die. As noted […]
‘Wicked Tuna’ is food for thought
Tomorrow the National Geographic Channel (of which approximately over 50% is owned by NewsCorp, a Murdoch Company) is debuting the television show Wicked Tuna. The show is intriguing because the species itself is remarkable. Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) can swim up to 40 miles per hour and can dive up to 3,000 feet. Their […]
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- Robert Emahiser on Why you should never walk on dunes
- Lesa on 10 brief facts on bioluminescence
- Lisa on Limulus Love
- Beach Chair Scientist on 17 facts about the wee sea potatoes
- Bernard Rejterada on 17 facts about the wee sea potatoes
- Brian on What is the difference between a summer and winter flounder?
- Inbound marketing on 15 facts about the Portuguese man-of-war that’ll have you saying “Didya know…?”
- Donnie Huckabee on Wordless Wednesday | Shell art
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Top posts & pages from BCS …
- Hurricane vs. Cyclone vs. Typhoon
- A House for Hermit Crab
- How to handle a horseshoe crab
- Snot's your house
- Wednesday Wisdom: Various quotes (Alaska scenes)
- A naturalist's must-see destination: Fossil Hunting at Bayfront State Park in Chesapeake Beach, MD
- Belly biology creates lasting memories
- Five awful puns about courtship in the sea
- Horseshoe crabs confirmed as members of arachnid family
- Beyond the bag: Other plastics being banned
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