Touch Tank Makes a Splash in Monroe

Touch Tank Makes a Splash in Monroe

Monroe, ME - Students, parents and teachers at Monroe Elementary School are praising the marine touch tank on loan from Penobscot Marine Museum. "It's like having a tidal pool in the hallway," said one enthusiastic student. "If this tank was not here, I would never see these things," said another.

Purchased by the museum last year with a grant from the Davis Conservation Foundation, the tank contains crabs, starfish, barnacles, clams, sea anemones and other tide-pool organisms. Following its initial tenure at the Riley School in Rockport, it moved to Monroe in February, with support from the Monroe school's parent-teacher organization. It will remain there for several months.

According to Monroe Elementary Principal Matthew Houghton, students in kindergarten and Grade 1 make daily tank observations, draw pictures and write sentences about the animal behaviors they observe. Students in Grades 4 and 5 are using the tank to supplement their study of invertebrates, classifying organisms into categories such as coelenterates, worms, mollusks, and echinoderms. And two students who are doing independent studies plan to give a presentation to a Grade 3 class in another school.

Parents - many of whom donated to a fund to bring the tank to the school - got a chance to see it at a recent math/science event. "On the night the touch tank was introduced, the parents liked it as much as the kids," said Houghton.

Here are a few more student comments that show both their delight and their learning:

"I want to learn to scuba dive so that I can visit them after we put them back."

"I can see lots of fish and creatures."

"It's another world under the water."

"The sea anemones look like broccoli and orange trees!"

  

"I feel all clammy because clams are in the tidal tank."

"Wow, the crab is big and is bigger that it used to be!"

"Crabs have very sharp claws, you might not ever want to touch a crab."

"The crab is hiding from us and its predators."

Rocky Coast News is a division of Rocky Coast Media