Four years of running this lab at the Oceanography Camp for Girls and another three running it for the Navarre Beach Marine Science Station, this shark tagging lab just keeps getting better!
One of the best things about working with the University of South Florida and the OCG girls is we get to experiment and cultivate a great lab activity that works for both an informal and traditional classroom setting. This year we got to experiment with using four different shark species and seeing how the students compared the data for different life stages of different species of shark.
Shark Dissections and why they’re a great “hook”
It may seem odd to some that we start this lab with a dissection of a shark, but this helps to grab the student’s attention and more so, helps them learn how to question things and become more curious. Students sometimes are stuck in a rut of feeling like they will get made fun of for being curious, especially in the older groups of students.
Learning how shark’s work is also a great way to get your students to think about more than just the movement patterns of the shark they are tracking and instead help them to consider the “why” of where the shark is going.
Another thing to consider when beginning your tagging segment with a dissection is to lead your students to being curious and thinking about the shark’s habits by just observing their specimen. This year’s group happened to have shark’s that were pregnant, in the case of the scenarios that they would be looking at later this was weirdly perfect, we got to discuss sharks that gave live birth and what is needed from the mother for when they do give birth, such as a safe haven for their young. All of these girls had no problem getting their hands dirty (with gloves of course) and finding out all the things that make a shark work!
Catch, Collect, Tag, Release!
For the tagging portion, the girls followed the data sheet to properly care for their shark while collecting information about their “catch”. They followed this general guide for getting their data:
- Catch the shark
- Desensitize the shark (towel over eyes, hose through gills)
- Take measurements and weight of shark (fork, standard, width)
- Take a blood sample
- Attach tracker
- Release shark
The interesting part this year was each group had a specific scenario card that showed them where, when, and how the shark was caught and then they went about their shark tagging. After taking the blood sample and tagging the shark, the girls went back to the lab to check out what information their tag gathered for their shark! These tags have an RFID tag that allows a phone or tablet open the data in a webpage on their device. We pulled the data over to the computers and looked at the Google Earth view of what each shark did as well as record our blood sample results and stomach content analyses. The site also has a section with an excel sheet where all of the shark’s recorded data is placed.
This data contains the time and date of the ping, the depth, the surface temperature of the area, and the speed clip that the shark was going when the ping occurred. These results are inspired by several scenarios that occur with sharks. One shark was a pregnant female traveling to the birthing grounds, one was an adult that had a typical hunting grounds, and the two juveniles were both finding their place and learning how to hunt and thrive in their environment.
These scenarios were built to have the girls compare and decide how best to protect a species that is represented in these data sets. Some of the sharks would benefit from a Marine Protected Area, others from better commercial fishing regulations. Analyzing the data helps them to understand what is takes to create these protections for various shark species and why they may need to be placed.
One of my favorite parts of this camp is the girls also have to present their findings for their families and our staff. This is a great way for students to get used to speaking in front of a crowd and how to communicate their research for the public. Our team presented their findings on how speed and depth relates to the behavior of the shark at specific life stages and they did JAWESOME! I can’t wait to see the amazing ways this lab can continue to grow.
