So, you may be wondering ... How are those Macrobrachium rosenbergii doing after a month in FC's classroom RAS?
The prawns arrived on March 19. At that time, the biggest one I measured was around 5 cm, tip of telson to tip of rostrum.
(I'm not measuring long delicate claws or antennae.)
This guy is a solid 7 cm and he's not the biggest, just an average size prawn who was slow enough for me to net him.
(He's alive by the way, and was returned immediately to the RAS.)
There is a huge alpha male BC (blue claw) living under the biofilter in the tank. The students have named him, "Goliath". He's got a centimeter or two on the photo model prawn above.
They are great fun and the kids are getting the basics of recirculating aquaculture systems down just by working with them.
Today, if they don't make me cover an absent teacher's class during my planning period, (where have all the substitute teachers gone? Isn't there a job shortage out there?), ... where was I? Oh yeah, ... IF I actually have a planning period today, I am inviting the TMH (trainable mentally handicapped) kids and their teachers into my empty room and we are going to feed the shrimp, feed Stewie the best snake ever, and look at the fish and critters in my aquariums.
I like to include them whenever I have something neat going on. We've tried to do this for a few weeks, but every time I picked a day, I got called to cover a class.
Hopefully I won't have to break our date this afternoon.
15 comments:
You are such a great Teacher! Wish I was going back (NOT). Glad to hear that the shrimp are coming along.
You do wonderful things! I don't know about Florida, but up here they made it much harder to qualify as a substitute teacher recently
You really are one of the great teachers.
It has to be cheaper to work you to death than to hire a substitute to fill the gaps.
That is unless they pay you extra for the additional class :))
You are so wonderful to include the handicapped kids! They are usually by far the sweetest group of kids around.
the shrimpies are coming along well!
i want to say, "you've got to be kidding, the kids with disabilities keep getting bumped because the school won't pay for a sub?" -- except, you wouldn't kid about that.
another teaching friend passed this along today, and you have probably seen it, but it made me think of you: http://neatoday.org/2010/04/21/florida-teacher-issues-rallying-cry-for-respect-for-educators/
Good on you for doing that for the TMH. Is it harder to get a substitute Teacher gig because of some recent change?
To All,
On the subject of sub teachers. It's always been a tough gig ... remember how YOU treated subs when YOU were in school.
Well, kids are generally ruder these days.
They did raise the requirements a while back here in FL which ruled out much of our school bus driver pool who subbed when they could.
Still, you'd think in these hard times, we would have more of a pool.
... Or, is it just easier and cheaper to steal your staff's planning time rather than recruit subs? Hmmmm?
Also, As I write this comment the TMH kids have just left and we had a great time.
We fed the shrimp first and then Stewie.
Stewie performed like a champ to much oohing and ahhhing. The kids were totally amazed by his eating process.
Wanna feel like a hero? Do something nice for some TMH kids.
AMEN!
What a great idea. The more kids are exposed to hands on learning the better! And I really owe every substitute teacher I ever had, a huge apology. They need combat pay.
neat.
um. did your layout change? or am i confused...
My hero!
This reminds me... I meant to comment on your previous post but forgot. When I was a kid in South Daytona, my dad's medical office had a stormwater canal going through it. Under his parking lot, it went through a concrete pipe and then went on out to hit the Intracoastal about a quarter of a mile away. There used to be really long crustaceans in there with chelipeds that were the length of their body, at least. I've never seen them anywhere else. Do these ring a bell with you? The photos that came up when I did a google image search were the only things I have ever seen that resembled them.
Thanks for the kind words y'all. The real heroes are the TMH teachers and teacher aides who work day in and day out to give these kids a shot at life. They have to be part teacher/part nurse/part parent all day long and ours do it so well.
I have great respect for them.
Joey,
That sounds like our native Macrobrachium carcinus. Pretty scarce I think. I've never come across one in all my dipping and snorkeling.
Same situation in SD, we had a teacher out and the secretary gone too. Teachers and parapros just cowboyed up and covered classes, lunch duty, office, meds, etc., etc.
You do what you need to to get through the day. I am always proud of the people I work with when everyone just pitches in. It does happen too often this time of year. We have 2 large high schools and when there is a track meet teachers are gone as coaches, officials and time keepers and we end up woefully short of subs on those days.
I've worked the the MH and EBD kids for years, it is such a good thing when they get to do things like "average" kids. It is such a great learning experience for everyone.
Yes FC... Looking at some of the photos, I can almost guarantee that's what they were. Thanks for solving a 30 year old mystery for me. We also used to have a nice population of those giant blue land crabs there too, but they seem to have disappeared over the years.
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