where training module 2 = "Our Animals (pt. 1)"
holyshit that was amazing in so many ways that nerdgasm does not even begin to cover it. i wish i had my camera but i'd look like a retard for a lot of it and a good chunk wasn't just what i saw (3/4 of it was just normal galleries that everyone can see) but the explanations and presentations from the gallery interpreters were just awesome - it seems like they went even more in-depth than what they normally do for the public. which would make sense, seeing as some of the volunteers in training there would eventually have to teach it back to people anyways.
but shit, that was cool. there was so much, like how some frog (the african clawed frog (?)) was shipped worldwide as an early form of pregnancy tests - people'd inject them with human (female) urine, and if they were pregnant, the injection would make the frogs lay eggs. so cool. and other shit, like how otters use rocks to crack open sea urchins (which i already knew) but also, if they find a rock that's particularly awesome they apparently have an extra fold of skin in their armpits where they store stuff like that (which i didn't know, and is awesome). and they're clever little shits too; apparently, when the aquarium staff are feeding them, they'll try to hide food in that "pocket" and then try to trick their handlers into feeding them more that way (so awesome.).
shit, what else was there...
oh yeah, totally got to see some behind the scenes stuff - a whole hallway of different kinds of jellyfish, and research being done on them, etc., it was really cool. and yeah. OH YEAH, and (back to the otters) how otters are apparently keystone species - they're the one thing in the cliched metaphorical jenga puzzle that would fuck everything up if they were removed from the picture: they eat tons of urchins, urchins eat tons of kelp. no otters, tons of urchins, no kelp, entire ecosystem of animals that depend on kelp as a habitat gone. and another cool otter thing that was, well, cool - apparently, since their young are so buoyant (to the point that they can't actually swim deep at all) but they obviously have to get to the bottom of the water to get food, to prevent their babies from floating away, they wrap them/tie them up in kelp. hilarioussssss
and there was also really cool talks in the arctic section, i just can't remember right now. apparently, everything is so high tech there cause research is being conducted a) by the aquarium b) by other people and sent to the aquarium and so so much is changing about the arctic/what scientists know about it, that they need to have, instead of posters and the like, computers so that they can instantly update new discoveries and whatnot.
and also, one of the big things i really got from tonight was learning - i learned so much tonight and it was all so fascinating, and i can't even think o f any more examples of awesome stuff (i also can't seem to think of any adjectives besides cool and awesome) fro mtonight, but still, it just...any doubt i had, about working with kids and teaching them about stuff at all, was totally erased from tonight. because that feeling of fascination and ooh and aah was so amazing, now i see why people become teachers or, well, gallery educators. to replicate that fascination, to see it on everyone's faces how amazing it is. so it'll be really cool to teach that stuff back to kids, to pass on the cycle - and i guess that's what the aquarium is all about, too. and i mean, learning really is beautiful. it's been fucking murdered as a word as well as its connotation - what with schools' "prescribed learning outcomes" and "learning habits" and all those gag-worthy terms, but, really, when you learn something, something you're utterly fascinated by...it's amazing.
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