At long last there was just one more sleep until the Vancouver Aquarium’s dissection class for homelearners. Esmé was beyond stoked when she went to bed last night, and this morning it was the first thing she mentioned when she woke up.
“I get to dissect today! Like a real scientist!”
Indeed.
I was not so stoked about accompanying her. Science has never been my thing, and I was that kid who ardently refused to dissect the frog in highschool because of my deeply held (at the time) beliefs about animal rights.
Go figure I’d end up Mama to a budding scientist who can’t wait to touch real brains and dig into some guts to figure out which tube is the poop tube.
So, off we went to the aquarium. One reticent Mama and one hugely excited kid. with Grandma and Hawk in tow so they could ogle jellyfish and penguins while we did the class.
We gathered with our group, most of whom we didn’t know except for a couple of familiar faces, and headed into the classroom. There were several tables, each with a herring and a squid set out on trays, waiting to be dissected.
The facilitator opened with a very short talk, and then each table set to work pointing out similarities and differences between the herring and the squid. Each table had an educator to keep us on task, as the hour was already feeling too short.
Once the group talked about the similarities and differences, we set about dissecting the herring.
To her absolute and undying delight, Esmé was invited to cut open the fish. It may also be true that she was the only one who wanted to, but I’m not sure about that. So she sat with the educator, who helped her cut along the fish’s midline, from tail to top.
The educator pointed out the roe, the intestine, the stomach, the heart, and by Esmé’s request, the brain too. Which Esmé got to touch with her bare hands. Cue barely contained glee.
Then it was time to start on the squid. By all appearances, somewhat of a less interesting creature. Not so.
Did you know that a squid has three hearts?
And that it’s a molusk? Based on the remnants of molusk features from prehistoric times, including a ‘beak’ and a quasi ‘spine’ of sorts called a pen.
And that is has jet propulsion? How cool is that?
The educator used the pen and the ink from the squid to draw little happy faces on the kids’ hands. Cue outright, unbridled glee.
All in all, I was enthralled to a degree far beyond what I had expected, and Esmé was suitably wowed by the entire thing and can’t wait to do more science classes.
We look forward to the next one!
Thanks, Vancouver Aquarium, for an awesome day for my young scientist. Now she’s added Marine Biologist to her list of future titles, alongside Entomologist, Virologist, and Epidemiologist.
