Cali Kid Corals

Online Gouging of Beginners?

MolaMola

MolaMola

Supporting Member
BARcard
Note: I was not considering buying these - just wanted to point out how absolutely crazy I think it is. : )
A parent heard we may restart additional classroom tanks next year and wanted to know if this was a good deal for the pretty 3/4 to 1-1/2"corals at LiveAquaria:
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Browsed for just a minute and this looks like the worst deal on the site. So expensive bc they have a good chance of survival?
 
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Depends on the size of the frags, and the fact they're aquacultured, but I'd agree that's a pretty bad deal regardless.

If you need some zoas or some other corals for an additional classroom tank, let me know. I'm all about teaching and I would've been over the moon if my classroom had had a coral tank.
 
Thanks for the offers - I know you people are generous! I may hit people up and do some trading once we are ready and once I ID possible pest in a frag tank. In the future I can show the parent our tanks and a LFS; I was just shocked by LA!
 
@MolaMola , please let me know if you need any corals for the classroom tanks!

I’d love to give you some zoas/mushrooms/pocillopora or GSP(if you want it in the tank)

Like @JVU said, of us would love to give frags for the school. Plus that would be a great way to teach coral propagation and raise awareness against harvesting coral from the ocean, and damaging the already critical ecosystems.

:)
 
I’ve been doing “aquarium time” at my kids school once a week where we have groups of kids between 4 and 10 years old sit by one of the tanks at their school and talk about science related topics that the tank can demonstrate. Like refraction of light. Invasive species. Food chains. Etc. even have done hands on toadstool fragging. Kids love the color changing titration tests!
This should be a thing much more than it is IMO. Real world ways to learn about science make it so easy. When a kid looks at the tank for 30 sec they pretty much always have a question. I can’t always answer them, but that just opens up other avenues of information exploration.
I am happy to help setup/fill(with water and corals) any tanks you need help with.
@fishdoctor is about to setup a nice school tank somewhere on the peninsula I believe. Maybe we should team up and make a textbook/lesson plan for classroom aquarium science!
 
MolaMola said:
Thanks for the offers - I know you people are generous! I may hit people up and do some trading once we are ready and once I ID possible pest in a frag tank. In the future I can show the parent our tanks and a LFS; I was just shocked by LA!
Click to expand...
You can also tell them about BAR. I think it would be cool to have a journal for some classroom tanks and parents could follow along too.
trying to get my incoming first graders to start doing journal entries in their class tank this year
 
@MolaMola sounds like you have plenty of volunteers, but I wanted to add myself to the list that would be happy to help stock your tank for free. Especially with the soft corals you are looking at, we should be able to fill your tank.
 
Coral reefer said:
I’ve been doing “aquarium time” at my kids school once a week where we have groups of kids between 4 and 10 years old sit by one of the tanks at their school and talk about science related topics that the tank can demonstrate. Like refraction of light. Invasive species. Food chains. Etc. even have done hands on toadstool fragging. Kids love the color changing titration tests!
This should be a thing much more than it is IMO. Real world ways to learn about science make it so easy. When a kid looks at the tank for 30 sec they pretty much always have a question. I can’t always answer them, but that just opens up other avenues of information exploration.
I am happy to help setup/fill(with water and corals) any tanks you need help with.
@fishdoctor is about to setup a nice school tank somewhere on the peninsula I believe. Maybe we should team up and make a textbook/lesson plan for classroom aquarium science!
Click to expand...

If you wanted to add microscopes/looking at the little critters in a reef tank, I'd be happy to do an impromptu microbiome/microscopy lesson to that, too. :)
 
IOnceWasLegend said:
If you wanted to add microscopes/looking at the little critters in a reef tank, I'd be happy to do an impromptu microbiome/microscopy lesson to that, too. :)
Click to expand...
We had plans to do this way back when. It never happened. It would be awesome. I still remember the first time I actually saw plant cells under a microscope in middle school. Mind blown.
 
Coral reefer said:
I’ve been doing “aquarium time” at my kids school once a week where we have groups of kids between 4 and 10 years old sit by one of the tanks at their school and talk about science related topics that the tank can demonstrate. Like refraction of light. Invasive species. Food chains. Etc. even have done hands on toadstool fragging. Kids love the color changing titration tests!
This should be a thing much more than it is IMO. Real world ways to learn about science make it so easy. When a kid looks at the tank for 30 sec they pretty much always have a question. I can’t always answer them, but that just opens up other avenues of information exploration.
I am happy to help setup/fill(with water and corals) any tanks you need help with.
@fishdoctor is about to setup a nice school tank somewhere on the peninsula I believe. Maybe we should team up and make a textbook/lesson plan for classroom aquarium science!
Click to expand...
Ditto to everything you said.
My favorite part of MACNA in Vegas was Charlie Veron's talk and a conversation afterward. We corresponded a few times later that year - he strongly believes all classrooms should have some sort of aquarium even if it is basic.
We will have to get together sometime. (Time is the problem.) I have a big supporter who works at LLL/Joint Genome Inst who wants me to write a how-to book for classroom tanks with curriculum. It is overwhelming to me, but you think it would be cool. : )
 
Coral reefer said:
You can also tell them about BAR. I think it would be cool to have a journal for some classroom tanks and parents could follow along too.
trying to get my incoming first graders to start doing journal entries in their class tank this year
Click to expand...
When we started, students did most of the entry on our classroom tank website, but as the program expanded there were other priorities, fewer independent helper students, plus the site got unwieldy.
 
Coral reefer said:
We had plans to do this way back when. It never happened. It would be awesome. I still remember the first time I actually saw plant cells under a microscope in middle school. Mind blown.
Click to expand...
My teacher grabbed some pond water with rotting vegetation/pond scum one day in 7th grade and let us look at it under a scope. I still remember that some twenty years later because of how cool it was.
MolaMola said:
Ditto to everything you said.
My favorite part of MACNA in Vegas was Charlie Veron's talk and a conversation afterward. We corresponded a few times later that year - he strongly believes all classrooms should have some sort of aquarium even if it is basic.
We will have to get together sometime. (Time is the problem.) I have a big supporter who works at LLL/Joint Genome Inst who wants me to write a how-to book for classroom tanks with curriculum. It is overwhelming to me, but you think it would be cool. : )
Click to expand...
I did my doctorate/post-doc with work that used a lot of genomics/transcriptomics and next-gen seq, focused a lot on lay-audience scientific communication, and my current job is a technical/marketing writer for a large biotech group. If you need help with the book, or just want another set of eyes for proofreading/stylistic consistencies, I'm happy to help with that, too. :)
 
Coral reefer said:
I’ve been doing “aquarium time” at my kids school once a week where we have groups of kids between 4 and 10 years old sit by one of the tanks at their school and talk about science related topics that the tank can demonstrate. Like refraction of light. Invasive species. Food chains. Etc. even have done hands on toadstool fragging. Kids love the color changing titration tests!
This should be a thing much more than it is IMO. Real world ways to learn about science make it so easy. When a kid looks at the tank for 30 sec they pretty much always have a question. I can’t always answer them, but that just opens up other avenues of information exploration.
I am happy to help setup/fill(with water and corals) any tanks you need help with.
@fishdoctor is about to setup a nice school tank somewhere on the peninsula I believe. Maybe we should team up and make a textbook/lesson plan for classroom aquarium science!
Click to expand...
Please let me know how I can help!! Especially if y'all do go the book or lesson plan route!
I have been a part of a couple of Coursea courses in my past life :)
 
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