Saturday, April 28, 2012

Pablo R. Prawn


This is Pablo.
He lives in my science class, the last survivor of a hundred young Macrobrachium rosenbergii prawns from an aquaculture project at my previous school.

The eighth grade girls who feed him every day named him "Pablo" for reasons only they know, but I like it. Pablo is about 2 years old and my prawn supplier says they can live about 5 years, so I hope to have him around for awhile.

He has earned "cocktail sauce immunity" and is a pet.

On May 8th, Pablo will be prawn number 2001 instead of just prawn number 1.

On that day, 2000 tiny PL's (PL = post larvae ... get with the prawn lingo people!) will arrive via UPS and enter our RAS ( RAS = recirculating aquaculture system ... ahem!) .

Yes, I know it's late in the school year, but amazing science projects live on grants, not the $100 dollar annual supply budget I get to teach 5 different science subjects.

Grants as wonderful as they are,  have bureaucratic hoops and delays built into them that don't always move at the speed of life.

But, we teachers need them, so we seek them out, jump through hoops, wait patiently for this or that person to approve, and then we make things happen.

Things beyond the textbook and the PowerPoint.

There's more to come on this project as it unfurls and yes, calender types, the school year will wind up in a month or so ... and yes, the question, "What happens to the prawns then?", is a good one.

They go home with me.


2000 and 1 prawns will come home to spend the summer in my old Tilapia RAS, until August rolls around again, and then they, just like the kids, will return to school.

There's a little video below of Pablo patrolling his tank.

His loneliness will soon end, so just ignore his song choice ... who knew prawns were in to Techno?






11 comments:

Pablo said...

Long life Pablo!

Anonymous said...

Hi FC,

How will you reconize Pablo when the other 2000 grow up?

P

cinbad122 said...

I miss that prawn!

R.Powers said...

Pablo,
Ditto.

Patio,
Old Pablo will actually not be mixed in with the babies. He'd eat them. He may get a friend or two later.

Cindy,
I understand. He does grow on you.

Miz S said...

Ha! A $100 supply budget! INSANITY. I have to learn how to do the grant thing. If you can do it, I can do it, right?

R.Powers said...

Yes, Miz S, that is a given.
:)

Thunder said...

I never knew that prawns were into the clubbing scene! ;-)

R.Powers said...

Thunder,
Actually, I believe it was a shrimp who invented the cocktail.

Anonymous said...

Oh FC,

Your comment to Thunder is soooo funny. You are a quick one! Thanks for the hearty laugh!!

P

Octohawk said...

RAS in my job means return activated sludge. I would hope they wouldn't be living in that, though. Yuck.

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