North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher’s From Shore to Sea Patch Program

For Cadet and Senior Girl Scouts, 7 th – 12 th Grades

Program Information: Cost per Scout: $20.00

Cost per Chaperone: $8.00

Minimum number of participants: 10

Maximum number of participants: 25

Patch:

Scouts who complete the day of programs will have completed the requirements for a From the Shore to Sea patch. Scouts will receive an Aquarium patch to recognize their accomplishments in water education.

Program Agenda:

The southeastern coastline is dominated by sandy beaches, but just north of the Fort Fisher Aquarium is a hard rock outcropping where a host of unusual animals can be found. Scouts will explore this coquina outcropping and discover what types of animals it attracts. While at the outcropping, scouts will also learn about the coquina rock and how it was formed and take a look at some different sand samples to discover what sand is created from and how it differs in other areas of the world.

Scouts will return back to the Aquarium go where few people have been before, behind the scenes to see how our Aquarist’s take care of our animals.

It’s back outside for a hike through a maritime forest and salt marsh to compare and contrast the flora and fauna found on the rocky outcrop and sandy soils. Scouts will get to pull a seine net to sample some of the life found here in nature’s nursery and learn how the plants here help to purify the water.. Scouts will also explore the open beach habitat with an Instructor and discover concepts of open beach and dune ecology. Scouts will learn how the natural environment repairs itself after disasters such as hurricanes, and what we as humans do to either help or hinder the process. Scouts will create a sand casting craft so that they can take a little piece of the beach home with them.

While out on the beach, scouts will all participate in picking up trash. A census of the different types of trash will be compiled and the Instructor will lead a discussion on how some of these materials may negatively impact wildlife.

Scouts will then go back inside to watch a marine careers video. They will learn about how to select and apply for colleges, where to gain work experience and how to get on the right path for a career working with water.

1 hour 15 minutes Orientation and Self Guided Tour

30 minutes Behind the Scenes Tour

1 hour 30 minutes Salt Marsh Exploration

45 minutes Open beach/sand casting/ trash pickup (to be done at end of Salt Marsh Exploration)

30 minutes Careers lecture and video

1 hour 30 minutes Rocky Outcrop Exploration/ sand sampling

45 minutes Lunch (not provided)

*The schedule for this program is tide dependent so this is not the order in which these

programs will occur, this is only their time length.

**The Rocky Outcrop program is tide dependent. In the case that the tide is not low enough during the time of your program we will substitute a live animal program with marine invertebrates.