WEB Sites

COSEE SouthEast (http://www.scseagrant.org/se-cosee/) has a new look and many new functions on our web site. There is a section for teachers—Teachers’ Niche, scientists—Scientists’ Niche and a new focus on the South Atlantic Bight, our region’s backyard ocean. Learn about the research and results of the fascinating megafauna—sharks, sea turtles and whales and dolphins. These are available in a power point format, just ready for you and your students.

We invite our COSEE SouthEast scientist partners to continue to provide new information.

SEACOOS (http://seacoos.org) has new information about what’s happening in the coastal waters. An underwater video camera located on the bottom in the Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary records creatures moving through the artificial reef structure. The cameras are located about 10 miles east of Grays Reef National Marine Sanctuary. Dr. Charlie Barans, SC DNR marine scientist, calls it “Sea life on candid camera!” With help from educators and computer design specialists, they constructed a web-based game. Check out the game and also learn about continental shelf fish on the South Atlantic Bight.

Fish Match: The game (http://seacoos.org/Community%20and%20Classroom/) is a memory game where you try to identify sea life from video clips. You then try to match the videotaped creature with the card that has the name of the animal. The video clips are taken from the Fish Watch archives and include fish, sharks, stingrays, eels, and even a sea turtle! Increase your score with each correct match, and when you've matched them all, you win! There are field notes with pictures and information for every species in the game. And because the cards are re-shuffled and different animals included with each game, no two games are ever the same. Keep playing until you're an expert! The Fish Match game is still in a draft version, so comments are welcome.

Elementary

The Sea, the Storm and the Mangrove Tangle by Lynne Cherry (2004) ISBN 0-374-36482-6 Farrar Straus Giroux, New York

In this richly illustrated chronicle of the life of one mangrove tree, Lynne Cherry details the abundant wildlife dependent upon its unique and wonderful ecosystem. Cherry, who wrote and illustrated this book, allows children and adults to learn about the value of mangroves as nurseries for young marine creatures, homes for many fish and shelter for all during storms and hurricanes. Cherry’s objective, besides telling a great story, is to encourage people to protect the mangrove ecosystem.

Let the River Run Silver Again! How One School Helped Return the American Shad to the Potomac River -- And How You Too Can Help Protect and Restore Our Living Waters by Sandy Burk (2005) 40 pgs. ISBN-0-929923-95-5 The McDonald & Woodward Publishing Company. 431-B East College Street, Granville, OH 43023

Early accounts of people who lived along the rivers of the Chesapeake Bay watershed described great schools of shad migrating up the rivers in the spring. The shad were so numerous and dense that they appeared to be a "mass of molten silver extending from bank to bank." Shad were important parts of the Chesapeake ecosystem. They were also economically important to humans. So important, in fact, that overfishing contributed to the closure of the Chesapeake shad fishery by the 1980s.

When Westbrook Elementary School in Bethesda, Maryland, became one of the first schools to participate in the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's shad restoration project in the 1990s, the school's Aqua Eagles Stream Team established their goal Let the River Run Silver Again.

Let the River Run Silver Again relates an environmental conservation success story for students ages 10 to 15, their teachers, parents, and others who mentor them. It is a source of information and insight for those who want to learn about and benefit from the success of others as well as those who are interested in developing environmental restoration programs in their own watershed. The students' experience thus serves as a model and inspiration for student or youth-group conservation projects anywhere. The southeast has migrating shad, herring, striped bass and sturgeon.

The full-color format presents engaging, action-packed photographs along with maps, graphs, and original art. Sandy Burk’s documentation of this effort provides enough resources and guides so that schools anywhere could find partners and a fishery to help restore.

This fictionalized account tells of a true occurrence in Phippsburg and Malaga Island in Maine. The year is 1911, and Turner Buckminster finds that he hates his new home in the coastal town of Phippsburg, where his father is the new preacher. He is ostracized by the boys in the town and criticized by the neighbors, but finally finds a friend in Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl from the neighboring island of Malaga. This island community is made up of former enslaved African Americans eking out an existence from the sea. Phippsburg has depended on shipbuilding for its economic stability, but the industry is on the wane. The self righteous Phippsburg town leaders carry out a plan to evict the islanders so they can develop the island for tourism. You will witness cruelty, loyalty, and love as the story unfolds toward its stunning climax. There are moments of joy as Turner, while adrift in the sea, looks in the eye of a whale, and of sadness as the islanders are forced to depart from their homes where they had "seen the sun rise and set ten thousand times." This poignant tale of historical events will grip your heart. (Newbery Honor Book and Prinz Award Honor Book)

Zooplankton of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts: A Guide to their Identification and Ecology by William S. Johnson and Dennis M. Allen with illustrations by Marni Fylling. (2005) Johns Hopkins University Press, Maryland. ISBN: 0-8018-8168-4. 288 pages.

This is the first field guide to zooplankton of the east and Gulf coasts of North America and includes larvae of barnacles, crabs, shrimps, starfish, and mollusks as well as permanent zooplankters, such as annelids, arrow worms and copepods. The “Quick Picks” section of the book is a handy guide to general identification and from there you can go to the specific sections.

Wendy Allen presented a session at the spring SC Marine Education Association conference in which participants investigated live plankton using the guide. Workshop participants also used a small plastic slide and cover to project the samples with a slide projector for group discussion. With a home-made net, constructed of panty-hose, and a dissecting scope or hand lens, students can investigate their own small critters in the estuary and use this new guide to aid with plankton identification.

Fishes of the Middle Savannah River Basin: with emphasis on the Savannah River Site by Barton, C. Marcy, Jr, D.E. Fletcher, F. D. Martin, M.H. Paller, Marcel M. Reichert. (2005) The University of Georgia Press, Athens. 480 pages. ISBN 0-8203-2535-X cloth.

This book is a comprehensive field guide and contains illustrated identification keys and information on life history and behavior of 100 native and introduced fish species, 70% of the native fish in the drainage area. Each family and species account has a description of the fish's appearance, habitat, conservation status, and geographic range. The book also discusses the Savannah River, tributary streams, reservoirs, and ponds from the 1950s to the present showing ecological changes, detailed habitat descriptions, and associated fish assemblages. Featuring more than 200 color photographs of species and habitats, this is the first comprehensive assessment of the fishes along the Georgia–South Carolina border on the Upper Coastal Plain and edges of the Lower Coastal Plain.