Poems & Stories

Hello, Aquarium

"Hello, teacher."
Today is special, the teacher says.
We will visit an aquarium.
We get to ride the bus.
"Hello, bus driver."

Our guide meets us at the door.
"Hello, guide." He is a marine biologist.
He asks us what lives in an aquarium.
We say fish do. He says lots of animals do.
They live in water in the wild.
They live in water in the aquarium.
At the aquarium we will see the types of
animals that live in the ocean.

This is a crab. "Hello, crab."
Crabs come in many different types.
Some live on land and some live in water.
They have a hard shell.
This is an exoskeleton.
They can walk sideways.
It looks funny. We try it too.

This is a jelly. "Hello, jelly."
They used to be called jellyfish.
Jellies have been on Earth a long time.
They have long arms.
The arms are called tentacles and
can sting things that swim near.
That is how they eat.
I like to eat jelly with peanut butter,
but not this jelly.
I don't want to get stung.

This is a seahorse. "Hello, seahorse."
They look like horses with a curled tail.
Male seahorses incubate seahorse eggs in
a pouch on their front. When they are old
enough the little seahorses leave.

This is a sea cucumber. "Hello, sea
cucumber." This does not look like a
cucumber from our garden.
It looks like a big worm.
They scavenge bits of food from
the ground to eat.

This is a sea anemone.
"Hello, anemone." Though it's an animal
it makes me think of a flower.
Look! Hiding by the anenome is a
clownfish. "Hello, clownfish."
They live together and help each other.
They are symbiotic.

This is a seal. "Hello, seal." A seal is
a semi-aquatic marine mammal. They like
to eat things that live in the water so
spend most of their time wet.
But they have to breath air so they can't
stay in the water all the time.

This is a green sea turtle.
"Hello, turtle." They have arms that are
good for swimming. Turtles make nests for
their eggs on land. They have a hard
carapace shell covering their body. It
changes color as they grow up.

This is a sea urchin. "Hello, urchin."
They look like spiky rocks.
They can walk very slowly.
The spikes protect them from
predators who want to eat them.
Sand dollars are also sea urchins.
We say we've seen some on the beach before.

This is coral. "Hello, coral." Corals
look like plants but they are animals.
They don't walk or swim as adults.
The coral bodies stay put.
These are polyps.

This is a seastar. "Hello, seastar."
People used to call them starfish.
Most have five arms that they walk with
and a mouth on the bottom of their middle.
They are radially symmetrical echinoderms.
We tried saying that three times fast.

This is a squid. "Hello, squid."
Squid can squirt ink to confuse
predators. Many also live so deep in the
dark ocean that they bioluminesce. This
means that they can make their own light.

This is a pufferfish. "Hello,
pufferfish." They are very poisonous.
When they are scared they fill their
stomachs with water and inflate like a balloon.
They are also covered in spines.
This is not a fish for hugging.

This is an octopus. "Hello, octopus."
It's called otco because it has eight
arms like other cephalopods.
It doesn't have a skeleton so that means
it can squeeze into small places.
They can also make ink to help them
hide from things that want to eat them.

"That's the end of the tour," the guide says.
"I hope you enjoyed your visit to the aquarium."
"We did," we say. "Goodbye, biologist. Goodbye, animals."
We head back to school on the school bus.
"Goodbye, aquarium." We wave when the bus drives away.