Olive and class on a boat field trip studying marine life.  

Teacher: Today you’ll be receiving magic powers to talk to animals and breathe under water to help with your research.

Students: Yay!!!

Olive raises her hand

Teacher: Yes Olive?

Olive: I don’t have an animal that I’m doing my research on yet

Teacher: Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time to find an animal

Students are already in swimsuits, they put on fins and jump in the water.

Olive swims down to a sandy spot, the water gets darker as she goes down.  Olive sees some rocks with starfish the color of salmon on them.  They look fuzzy.

Olive thinking: Some people think starfish are good luck, my this starfish will be my lucky subject.

Olive: Hello, my name is Olive, what’s yours?

Starfish: (says nothing)

Olive: Would you like to help me with a research project for my class?

Starfish: (still says nothing)

Olive: Ok then, I guess I’ll ask someone else!

Olive thinking: So starfish don’t talk?  

FUN FACT: Starfish don’t have brains

Olive swims on and sees a school of brilliant black, yellow and blue butterfly fish.  

Olive thinking: These are really pretty, they might make a good project

Olive: hi, my name is Olive, what’s yours?

Butterfly fish: My name is Cerulean

Olive: Would you like to help me with a school project?

Cerulean: I’m very busy polishing my scales and I don’t have enough time.  I am heading to a fashion show

Olive: Ok, bye.

Olive thinking: She seemed kinda vain, she might not have been a very helpful fish

FUN FACT: Butterfly fish beautiful color patterns make them favorites in aquariums

Before Olive can swim away, a shark snakes towards them.  

Cerulean: Eeeekk, swim for your life and the shimmer of your scales!

Olive: Keep calm everybody, I’ve learned that sharks don’t normally eat people.

Cerulean: We are not human!  We are fish and sharks will eat us!

Cerulean (quietly): Oh, I don’t want a shark to eat me, just think of how dull my scales will look

Olive thinking: Even though the shark probably won’t eat me, it might be a good idea to hide.  

FUN FACT: Sharks have a 6th sense to detect electricity

Olive swims with the butterfly fish to a coral reef, they hide behind a pink, rough fan-like coral

All of a sudden part of the coral seems to turn into an octopus like creature

Olive: Aaaaaahhh!  What are you?

Coconut: I’m a cuttlefish, my name is Coconut, you can call me Coco for short.

Olive: And how did you appear out of no where?

Coco: I was camouflaging.  I change color to blend in with my surroundings. Cuttlefish are the best color changers!  As soon as we hatch, we can change our color to at least 13 different patterns.  This helps us hide from predators and hunt for prey.

Olive thinking:  Wow, this is by far the coolest of all the animals I saw today!  Color changing is incredible!

Olive: Would you like to help me with a project for school?

Coco: That sounds fun!  Just one question, what’s school?

Olive: School is where humans go to learn.

Coco: Oh, cool.  How can I help?

Olive: I need to learn more about cuttlefish, what other cool things can you do?

Coco:  When we are attacked, we squirt black ink like an octopus or squid.  We are all cephalopods, which means “head foot”.  

Olive: Wow, you are really smart!

Coco: Well, cuttlefish have some of the largest brains of all invertebrates.  Now I’m getting hungry.  I normally eat shrimp and crabs.  But recently there is a lot of competition for food.  Global warming has created warmer waters, leading to increased numbers of cuttlefish.  Our food, on the other hand, is decreasing because of ocean acidification. I’m always hungry and never get enough food.

Olive: oh how sad, can I help?

Coco: yes!  You need to tell the humans to stop making so many green house gasses!  Bike or walk instead of driving, use solar panels or windmills to create electricity instead of burning gas.

Olive: Would you like to swim back and tell my class about this?  The other kids should be heading back to the boat now.

Coco: Absolutely! thank you so much!

Setting change: On the boat, Coco is in a tank of water and is talking to everyone

Coco: So everyone, that is why you need to take care of the earth.

Class: Cheers and clapping.

Pearl Fish #2:  Hey, what’s that over there??

Sea Cucumber:  “Hi.  I am the sea cucumber. “

Pearl Fish #2: “Are you a vegetable??”

Sea Cucumber:  NO!!! I am not a vegetable, but an animal that looks like a cucumber!!!!” 

Pearl Fish 1:  “It must clean inside of the sea cucumber because he cleans up the whole ocean, he is the ocean’s janitor.”

Pearl Fish #2:  “How does he do that?”

Pearl Fish #1:  “It moves along the ocean floor using its tentacles.  It takes in sand, eats the organic matter (carbon containing compounds such as living things), and poops what is left.”

Pearl Fish #2:  “Ugh.”

Pearl Fish #1:  “No.  The poop is good for the ocean.  It helps in making coral reefs and might reduce acidification ( making the water more acidic, which is not good).”

Pearl Fish #2:  I don’t see any gills.  How does that thing breathe?”

Pearl Fish #1:   “Through its butt!  But that is not the only weird thing going in and out of its butt.

Pearl Fish #2:  “What do you mean?”

Pearl Fish #1:  “Well.  When a sea cucumber feels threatened, scared or even too full, it will do a strange thing to fix it called evisceration (removing its own body parts).   When a sea cucumber eviscerates, it throws out its inner organs, mostly through its butt.   But the organs aren’t lost.  The sea cucumber grows them back in about one and one half weeks.”

Pearl Fish #1:  “Let’s go meet my friends.  They are inside the sea cucumber-he can hold about 15 of us.”

Pearl Fish #2:  “Cool!.  Look at this anterior!.  We’ve hit the jackpot, baby!”

Sea Cucumber:  “What are you all doing in my butt????”

The end.

-ruby