For Junior Girl Scouts, 4 th – 6 th Grades

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 Water Wonders patch. Scouts will receive an Aquarium patch to recognize their accomplishments in water education.

Program Agenda:

Scouts will begin the day at the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher where they will be oriented on the day’s activities and meet the Instructor that will be conducting these programs. The scouts will then take a self-guided tour through the new aquarium.

Scouts will explore a maritime forest, salt marsh and open beach habitats with an Aquarium Instructor who will explain how fresh and salt water determine the type of vegetation and animals that are found in these areas. Scouts will pull a seine net to sample some of the life found in the marsh pools and pull a plankton net to discover some of the smallest members of the marsh and ocean food webs. These samples will be used later to test for pH and salinity, as well as observe the plankton under a microscope. While out in the marsh, scouts will get to try their hand at crabbing. The blue crab is one of the top commercially important shellfish on the east coast and is a common inhabitant of our saltwater marshes. Scouts will learn all about the blue crab’s life cycle, anatomy and harvesting regulations

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Finally, the Instructor will sit back and allow the students to become teachers. Scouts will be given poster boards, markers and crayons to create a water cycle masterpiece that they will present to the group.

9:00am-10:30am Orientation and Self Guided Tour

10:30am-12:30pm Salt Marsh and Crabbing, Sampling and checking temperature

12:30pm-1:30pm Lunch (Not Provided)

1:30pm-2:15pm Discovery Room Activities Look at plankton collected and test for pH and Salinity

2:15pm-3:00pm Water Cycle Poster Preparation

3:00pm-4:00pm Water Cycle Presentations