A while ago in my class at the Deering Estate we learned about Plankton. They are tiny tiny organisms that many fish and whales use as their only food.

This is the Deering Estate.

 

This is the path to the classroom, behind me is the ocean. If you look really close behind me you will see palm trees. My mom says they are the one that they used in the opening of the tv show Miami Vice. I have no idea what that it but she and my dad told me that it was really popular when they were teenagers.

 

Here is a link to the wiki page that explains about plankton:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankton

We made plankton catchers in class. It was easy. You used a soda bottle, some pantyhose, tape and a piece of string. Then you took it to the water and dragged it along the top of the water. They would be in the upside down bottle top. We took them in to the classroom and put them on glass and then in the microscope to see them. It was hard to see them.

 

They don’t look like they can catch much, but remember, plankton are really tiny, so you get about a million of them in this catcher.

 

After we finished looking at the plankton in the microscopes we used other soda bottles to make jellyfish. You cut the bottle in half. You then cut the bottle in fringes and then you heat it with a lighter or heat gun and they curl up.