The Teacher Within

This semester I have taken on a lab demonstrating role for the second year Vertebrate Biology course.  There will be a three hour practical lab every week until November, most of which, as expected for a vertebrate biology course, are dissections.  I recall that during my undergraduate year this was the one paper that I aced, and received a letter from the lecturer for that course suggesting I pursue postgraduate research in this field.  Well well well…

Our second prac held last week was the one fieldtrip for the semester.  The group of 70-something students went down to the uShaka Oceanarium for the afternoon.  I was well impressed with the facility there and they had spectacular tropical reef tanks, as well as covering a variety of marine communities.

Though I’d never seen a dolphin show before and didn’t know what to expect – sadly I could only find its analogy as the aquatic version of a chimpanzee tea-party.  Admittedly I wish I knew more about the needs required, and those fulfilled, in this environment before making such a bold statement.

It is as one of the fortunate few who has had the opportunity to interact with dolphins at various times (swimming with spinner and bottlenose dolphins in Mauritius, having Common dolphins just a fingertip away riding in the bow wave of our family boat in the Bay of Plenty, and seeing large pods of Dusky dolphins frolicking off the Kaikoura coast), that this form of entertainment is compared against.
Sadly, one naturally has a weaker emotive response looking into the eyes of an enormous ragged-toothed shark in a similar sized aquarium.

My group investigating the open ocean fishes

Pineapplefish Cleidopus gloriamaris

In the same week, I threw myself into the deep end in an attempt to assist with a school camp.  The Padbury family run the Wilderness Training Programme; adventure activities for schools and other groups such as Africa Quest.  This was the first camp run for this particular Kloof school, and for many of the school kids it was their first night.  So it’s not too surprising that keeping 83! Grade 4’s (9-10 year olds) on task and out of trouble was going to be a challenge. 

Arriving at Southport on the South Coast at midday, they started out as a most unruly bunch.  Though we kept the activities running until 9pm on the first night - finishing with 'stalk the lantern', which on a full-moon night was quite impossible for the wee grommets.

The next day we had them worked out, and it was great to end the camp with a good couple of hours on the beach.  Not common in New Zealand, but widespread here as far as I can tell, are these concrete splash pools in the upper tidal zone.  The morning was made most memorable by the two pods of (maybe) bottlenose dolphin’s cruising the surf zone, and out on the horizon one or two humpback whales performing spectacular full breaches.