The Mote Aquarium is a highlight of visiting Sarasota. We visited this past July and went on a boat tour of the bay. The bay has a bed of seagrass which is the foundation for the sea life around it. When the area started developing, seagrass was dredged and built on and of course caused havoc to the surrounding life, which includes Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphins, urchins, rock-fish, and countless others. We were treated to views of the dolphins and the marine biologist onboard brought up a series of animals (all put back in to their environments of course) highlighting the diversity of the bay. You can read more about attempts to aid in the recovery of the seagrass habitat at the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program.

Manatees can also be found in Sarasota Bay but we didn't see any. They are  an endangered species —  boats hit the slow-moving sea mammals, they get caught in fishing nets, and fertilizer run-off has been responsible for contaminating the seagrass they consume. According to the the Smithsonian's Ocean Portal site, Christopher Columbus is responsible for the first recorded sighting of the manatees, which he mistook for a mermaid! 

Traveling outside of our neighborhood provides a great opportunity to explore other animal habitats and environments. We recently hit the beach in Florida and explored the intertidal zone, that is, the part of the beach that exists between the high and low tide marks. You can occasionally see ghost crabs on this part of the Gulf Coast, but I've always been fascinated by the little clams that burrow in and out of the sand as the waves lap onto the shore. As it turns out, they are called "coquinas" and are bivalve clams. The picture to the left shows several in the center of the frame somewhat clearly, with others in the process of burying, being buried, or going with the flow of a wave. The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources has a short but informative leaflet on the coquina, its habitat, and its challenges, which you can read here. According to that document, an abundant coquina population can be an indicator of beach health. That seemed a good piece of environmental news about the particular Siesta Key beach we were on, as they were abundant. Each time our feet sank into the sand, they unearthed handfuls of the wee clams scrambling in the water. 

The SCNR pdf also has a great picture showing the bi-valve of the creature. If patient, you can watch the coquinas burrow out of the sand and extend their valves. They feed on micro-organisms like phytoplankton and bacteria. They are fed on by birds and fish. 

Given the nature of the waves, this video isn't great, but I did manage to catch a few of the coquinas burrowing mid-wave if you look towards the bottom of the screen. I could watch these for hours, though Conor was interested for a few minutes — he did seem to get a bigger kick out of the birds that were feeding on the clams. 

While in Sarasota, we had the chance to visit the Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium — I recommend it as it's mostly enclosed and I found it to be very kid-friendly. It's small but has a great collection, including a shark tank. Eels, clown fish, jellyfish, they're all featured in a space easily walkable by the 3-5 year-old crowd, and it's got informative exhibits for the animals in its tanks. 

At the Mote, I also found a great book in the gift shop entitled Awesome Ocean Science by Cindy A. Littlefield. She's got a fun experiment on page 40 that shows how undertow is created. I won't go into detail here but I recommend looking it up as it can answer questions from the wee ones on why their feet sink in the sand along the shore. 

I also really liked her idea (on page 47) for creating a simple underwater viewer for tidal pools. A cylinder (like a coffee can with a good field of view) is covered by plastic wrap on one side and secured by a rubber band so that that end can be lowered into the tidal pool to provide a clear view of the creatures residing there. The beach we were on didn't really recede into tidal pools at low tide, but certainly if you have a chance, these provide a great opportunity to view nature. In the pools you can generally find crabs, small fish, urchins, and even the occasional starfish. Of course, the idea is to observe these creatures without removing them from their habitat and without hurting them. It's a great chance to commune with nature and to show kids the wonders of ocean life.