Spotlight on Education: Youth Take the Plunge Into Fish Anatomy, Environmental Stewardship

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Can you tell me how old a fish is just by looking at a slice of bone? That’s one question youth will learn how to answer in the Manatee Marine Explorers Day Camp created by two University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension agents.

”There is so much more to the ocean than what you can see on the surface,“ says Angela Collins, a UF/IFAS Extension Manatee County agent and co-organizer of the camp.

She and fellow Manatee County UF/IFAS Extension agent Michelle Atkinson will introduce attendees to the diversity of marine life that may be less familiar than dolphins or sea turtles. During a fish dissection, Collins will show what makes fish unique–such as gills–and what makes them not so different from us. ”We’ll show the kids where the heart is, the stomach, intestines–things they can relate to,“ Collins said.

These young scientists will also discover the otolith, a tiny bone in the fish’s head that can tell a scientist how old the fish is–just as a tree gets more tree rings as it ages, the otolith likewise develops rings as a fish grows older. Attendees will practice looking at a thin slice of the otolith under a microscope to find out a fish’s age.