Today we welcomed another interesting visitor to our class. Mr Jack,  a fisherman from Troon Harbour told us all about his job. He owns a fishing boat named ‘Ocean Hunter’ which is equipped to stay at sea for a week. Being a fisherman can mean you’re away from home for a long time. Mr Jack brought a wonderful variety fish for us to look at. We all had the opportunity to handle the fish with our plastic gloves on.

Leah said: “I think Mr Jack is very brave to hold the fish. It looked a bit difficult to hold the lobster without it pinching him.”

Matthew commented: “I really liked the angler fish or monkfish as it’s usually known. I also liked touching the lobster although it was a bit scary because it was still alive.”

Charlotte added: “Usually when Mr Jack is out fishing he trawls the seabed for prawns.”

Dylan said: “I thought it was very kind of Mr Jack to bring in all his fishing equipment to let us look at it. I liked trying on the inflatable lifejacket. Mr Jack pulled a cord to make it inflate and I felt a bit squashed!”

Millie explained: “My favourite fish was the lobster because it had a really hard shell on its back. I also liked the sea urchins which looked green and spiky.”

Emma said: “I liked touching all the slimy fish but the lobster was my favourite with its hard shell which felt strange to touch.”

Harley added: “I really like fish. Mr Jack told us that cod is used to make fish fingers.”

Beth said: ” Mr Jack allowed us to try on his fishing gloves. They are rough on the outside to help him grip the fish.”

On Wednesday 31st May, fifteen pupils from our class were fortunate enough to visit West FM where we learned how to produce and present the weather forecast. We were met by radio presenter, Zoe Kelly who gave us a tour of the studios before giving us the opportunity to record the weather forecast. We enjoyed listening to our voice recordings before the end of the visit!!

On Tuesday 30th May, Miss McEwan visited our class to talk to us about sea plants. She told us all about different types of seaweed and algae. We learned about macro algae and micro algae. Macro algae is large so we can see it without a microscope however micro algae is tiny so we need to use a microscope to see what it looks like. We had fun playing a sorting game where we had to try to identify both macro and micro algae from picture cards.

On Friday 26th May, we enjoyed a visit from Tara Proud who works for MCS. We learned about rock pools, the common seal, basking sharks, blue whales, minke  whales and turtles.

Leatherback turtles are named for their shell, which is leather-like rather than hard, like other turtles.

They are the largest sea turtle species who are critically endangered. They are not cold blooded and can live in cold seas. For most of their lives they live in the open ocean and feed almost exclusively on jellyfish. Tara told us that leatherback turtles can’t distinguish between jellyfish and plastic bags. Once leatherbacks eat plastic, thousands of spines lining the throat and esophagus make it nearly impossible to regurgitate. The plastic can lead to the obstruction of the gastrointestinal tract.

We were encouraged to help to keep our beaches clean. We were astonished to learn that some sea areas are thought to contain 46000 pieces of litter per square mile! We can all play our part by cutting down on the amount of plastics we use for example we could use a refillable plastic bottle for water and adopt re useable plastic bags.