I now know a new kind of tired: Teacher-on-an-overnight-field-trip tired.
This past week I chaperoned an aquarium sleepover for my brother’s school. There were approximately 90 kids from grades 8 and 9 on the trip. When the kids arrived at the aquarium at around 8:30pm they had already been to a convenience store and Starbucks, and were wired with caffeine from energy drinks and espresso! As they piled off the buses I started to wonder what I had just volunteered myself to help with. I was just as excited as they were though as it was my first aquarium sleepover!

The aquarium staff certainly seemed to know what they would be up against as they had a huge staff on location, and tons of activities to the keep the students busy. The students were separated into groups for touring the aquarium. We visited all the exhibits indoors, watched a presentation on Ocean Wise, and went into the wet lab for a chance to have some hands on fun with marine invertebrates. Here are some photos from the wet lab:

 Hermit crabsSea anemonesSea cucumberSea starsSea urchins

For the night the boys slept by the dolphins, and the girls slept by the belugas. It took everyone quite awhile to fall asleep because everyone was so interested in watching the belugas. They turn off the lights in the room, but light up the tank so that you can see them swim by. It was kind of funny because everytime a beluga swam near by one of the tank lights it lit up the area where we were sleeping. It kind of reminded me of when your laptop is “sleeping” and the light slowly pulses.

The kids were sure tired the following morning. They were given free time to explore the aquarium but most of them were just ready to go home. The sleepover with the whales was a really neat experience in itself, but I also really enjoyed the opportunity to interact with the grade 8s and 9s, and to see what it is like to take a class on an overnight trip.

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