Cherysh Does: A Few Things Briny

Making A Brittle Sea Star

We have recently completed our Apologia's Swimming Creatures study for the year, and while we have really enjoyed it, it will be nice not to think about the sea and all it's fascinating and sometimes disgusting inhabitants for a while, and hopefully just take a few dips in it over the summer instead! Mum almost feels like the pictures below - a saturated solution, full to the brim of pinnipeds, cephalopods, cetaceans, crustaceans, echinoderms, cnidarians and mollusks (etc!!)!

Here are some photos of one of our last experiments: Making a Brittle Star from a saturated salt solution.

After two days the salt had covered the glass jug. We were able to pull the strings out and see some large crystals forming. We then put it somewhere high where Mr 2 couldn't reach it, and forgot about it for a while. The lesson for mum in this is that salt will eat the measurement marks off a pyrex jug...

Note markings semi erased! :(

Carefully snapping the brittle stars away from the jug.

Tall Ship Festival

In October Sydney hosted the Tall Ships Festival, which was held to celebrate the centenary of the first entry of the Royal Australian Navy's Fleet into Sydney Harbour - what an awesome opportunity! They had come up from Hobart, and later sailed to Auckland - where I think it may have been easier to see them! They expected 700k+ people in Darling Harbour that weekend, so we decided just Dad and Mr 10 would go for a look, or we would probably lose someone. Or I would most certainly lose my patience. Or my mind. Probably both. So I don't have all the details of which ship was where - they also visited the National Maritime Museum, which had it's own boats etc, so I am afraid the pictures are all added randomly. If you would like to see more about the ships, please click on the links :)