For many children, the most memorable experience is touching live sea creatures. The touchtank is available with the most popular Outreach classes, including “The Adventures of C-Weed the Snail,” “At Home in the Sea,” and “Treasure in the Tidepools.” Students have the opportunity to get up-close-and-personal with bat stars, ochre stars, knobby stars, keyhole limpets, red and purple sea urchins, sea cucumbers, shore crabs and moon jellies.

A popular preschool program, “The Adventures of C-Weed the Snail,” uses the magic of puppets to introduce young children to ocean animals and concepts like predation, habitats and conservation. Add the touchtank experience and students have a truly unforgettable day. “Treasure in the Tidepools” (2nd -8th grade) and “At Home in the Sea” (K-1st grade) are lessons that also include the touchtank. The lessons focus on the rocky shore habitat and the adaptations animals use to live and thrive in the pounding surf.

The Outreach program also offers many other wonderful interactive classes, including “Ten Arms and an Attitude: A Squid Dissection” (3rd-8th grades) where students pair up and wrestle with the tentacles of a market squid while learning about its strange and amazing anatomy. The class, “No Guts, No Glory: A Fish Dissection,” (3rd-8th grades) transforms even timid students into budding scientists as they examine and learn the function of the internal organs of a local saltwater fish.

No matter what lesson a teacher chooses, our goal in the Outreach program is to inspire students to want to learn more about science and the ocean. Now we’ve added a list of the California Science Standards covered in each class on our website, providing teachers a way to integrate the Ocean Outreach program into their lesson plans. For more information about Outreach classes or to schedule a visit to your school, click here.