Field Trip to Galveston

Every year in April sometime, I bring my Aquatic Science classes to Galveston. This year because of increased class sizes, I went 3 times. I was short a chaperone one day so I dragged David along with me. And of course if David and I went, the girls had to come too!!! Naomi was so excited. She did everything the big kids did including filling out the field trip information and specimen records sheets. Kaylee just enjoyed all the attention from the teenagers. She also enjoyed helping find things and playing in the water. When Naomi returned to school the next day, she gave an oral report of the trip with pictures to her class. Her teacher and class LOVED it!! On a side note, her teacher did not even mark her absent! ;o) Here are the pictures that I took of the girls down there! There are plenty more on my student's cameras. My girls were definitely a hit. In fact, I had lots of babysitting offers after this!

Naomi with a marsh periwinkle snail
Kaylee with her periwinkle snail

Naomi shuffling her feet to help scare up animals into the seine net

Kaylee having a ball

Kaylee heading off on her own little adventure!!

A visit with Grandma and Grandpa Brown Pt 1

After 3 year of begging, we finally got Grandma and Grandpa Brown to come back to Texas and visit. They got into town 1 o'clock Wednesday morning. Wednesday we stayed around the house for most of the day. Yesterday Pop-pop (Braithwaite) acted as our chauffer and he brought us down to Kemah. We thought the girls would love to run in the fountain there at Kemah. But for some reason the fountain was not working at its best so we loaded back up and headed to Galveston for a ferry ride. There is a ferry that goes across to the Bolivar penisula. The girls love going on the ferry. They like to stand on the bow. Especially on the way back when the water splashes up on the bow and they get soaking wet.

Playing in the fountain at Kemah

Grandma, Grandpa Brown and the girls on the ferry

Pop-pop, Grandpa Brown and the girls

Field Trip

This past Friday, I brought my two Aquatic Science classes to Galveston. I had some room on the bus this year so I invited my mom, Aurora, and my girls to come along with us. In years past, I have conducted the field trip on my own. This year due to Ike, I decided to have our field trip conducted by the Friends of Galveston Island State Park. They did a wonderful job and I will probably have them conduct our field trips from now on. They did a bay walk and a beach walk for us. For part of the bay walk, due to high tide we got to walk through the water of the mud flats/salt marsh. After Naomi and Kaylee knew it was okay to get their shoes wet, they throughly enjoyed walking in the water and finding stuff. My high school seniors were more reticent about walking in the water and getting wet. We were able to see a lot of organisms that my classes studied this year including marsh periwinkle snails, comb jellies, sea nettles, cabbage head jellies, ghost shrimp, bean clams, brown shrimp, fiddler crabs, blue crabs, and mole crabs just to name a few. My students, the chaperones who came with me, and of course the girls and my mom all had a really enjoyable time. For those of you, who live in the area or if you come to visit, should really take advantage of these guided walks that the Friends of Galveston Island State Park do. They do the walks on Saturday and Sunday at 10 am. They meet at the Welcome center/Nature center at the Galveston Island State Park. Right now until the end of June it is free entry into the park. You will have to start paying again once the State Park starts running it again in July.

Kaylee looking for a marsh periwinkle snail

Kaylee with her periwinkle shell

Kaylee looking at the fish and other stuff we found in the seine net

Galveston Bay Day

This past Saturday we went down to Kemah Boardwalk. Kemah was holding a Galveston Bay Day celebration with educational activities for the whole family and lots of neat booths and exhibits about Galveston Bay. Since I teach Aquatic Science, I thought it would be a fun thing to go to. We did not get there as early as I would have liked so we did not get to see everything. But what we did see and do we throughly enjoyed. One of the girls favorite parts was the fountain where they got throughly soaked. They also got to touch some hermit crabs, blue crabs, and anemones in a touch tank. And I got to show off my knowledge of Galveston Bay. Here are a few pictures from that day. My dad has more on his camera.

Playing in the fountain

Next time we need to bring swimsuits

Take my picture please