Habitats

The educational goal of this trip is to introduce students to a variety of habitats typical of a North Carolina Barrier Island. These habitats include:

	Beach/ocean ecology - erosion; whales and dolphins; weather and the ocean; beach birds; fish adaptations; waves and tides; sea turtles; and the Menhaden Fishing industry.
	Salt marsh ecology - ocean’s nursery; issues of wetland development; intertidal zones; pulling mussels from a shell (mollusk dissection); tracks and traces; mammal skeletal reconstruction; and bird adaptations.
	Sound/estuary - blue crabs; shipwrecks; pirating and navigation; tides; scallops and clams; squid; oil spills; and pollution.
	Freshwater pond - freshwater fish; all-purpose cattails; tracks; pond pollution; hibernation; acidity and acid rain; frogs; and insects.
	Maritime forest - tree anatomy and hillside erosion; hide-tanning; photosynthesis and leaf factories; fruits and flowers; natural dyes; composting; and worm factories.

Make a Difference

As the old man walked the beach at dawn, he noticed a young man ahead of him picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea.

Finally, catching up with the youth, he asked him why he was doing this.

The answer was that stranded starfish would die if left until the morning sun.

“But the beach goes on for miles and there are millions of starfish,” countered the old man.

“How can your effort make any difference?”

The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and carefully threw it to safety in the waves.

“It makes a difference to this one,” he said.

-Anonymous

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