Another summer has passed.
More than 7000 visitors have visited us since early June and they all had the pleasure of engaging with our Summer Educators. Before they wrapped up and headed back to school, we posed a few questions about their summer under the Salish Sea. Here is what Marissa W. had to say.
(Special thank you to Canada Summer Jobs funding for supporting our non-profit and allowing us to assist students in skill development and work experience.)
Marissa W.
Major in University: Biology with a concentration in marine biology.
Favourite Salish Sea species you didn’t know much about before you worked at the Centre?
It’s so hard to pick just one! I’m team grunt sculpin 100%. I did know they existed but had never observed them in person. Seeing the grunt sculpins moving around first hand was interesting and exciting. Watching them move around the bottom of their habitat is quite entertaining, and seeing them all tucked away into the giant acorn barnacles and camouflaging so well is something I always looked forward to seeing and enjoyed sharing them with visitors.
Favourite habitat IN the Centre:
Toss up between the nursery and the kelp forest. The nursery is the habitat I checked on every morning when I arrived because there is so much going on and many fun tiny critters to watch, but I could stand in front of kelp forest and watch it for hours!
Favourite place in the Salish Sea to go explore nature:
East Sooke Regional Park! Beautiful hiking trails along the coast and lots of sea life to discover.
Describe how working at the Centre connects to your schooling and career aspirations.
I love fish, and recently took a fishes course in school. I learned about a number of fish, but the majority of the time I was observing and drawing these fish from preserved specimens. To be able to see these fish moving around and really observe their behaviours was incredibly cool, and really put all the pieces together for me.
What was something that surprised you about your time as an Educator?
Two things really surprised me about my time as an educator: 1) the level of knowledge kids have about so many of the local species, 2) the hardest questions often come from kids.
On one of my first shifts at the look pool I was talking to a family about the sea stars and a child started naming all of the different species, and I was blown away. I thought I could stump them with a fun fact, so I asked them if they knew what the leather stars smelt like. They replied back, without missing a beat, “GARLIC!”!. Their parents asked them how they knew that, and rather than answer, the child proceeded to explain how the star’s water vascular system functioned. I was impressed with the explanation, and the depth of understanding this child had was amazing for their age; I personally didn’t learn about a sea star’s water vascular system until third year university. This continued to catch me off guard; kids that have a wealth of knowledge about the local species. It is so fun to see kids excited about the ocean.
I expected to receive the occasional hard question, but I never thought that the hardest ones would come from the youngest visitors. I anticipated kids would be the easiest to talk to to and teach, but never once thought that their questions would be the ones I would need to follow up with the most. Questions of “Why is ____ doing ____?” or the continuous streams of “but why?” Not only did these experiences lead me to learn more about things I had never questioned, I got a small glimpse of how kids see the aquarium; it’s an interesting perspective that I wouldn't have experienced otherwise.
What was your highlight of the summer?
The highlight of my summer has to be having so many knowledgeable people to ask my ever-growing list of questions to.
What is your best fun fact? The one you shared most often with visitors and never grew tired of saying?
I really love the shock value of crazy facts, so I love telling people about the sea cucumber. When a cucumber feels threatened, they can eviscerate (force out) some of their internal organs to distract predators and escape. The part that I find the craziest is they survive, and regrow those organs! An equally crazy sea cucumber fact is that they breathe through their bums. Also, sea cucumber’s have feeding tentacles that look like feather duster mops and they use them to pick up food. The last fact isn't shocking, but I do love pointing out sea cucumbers feeding to visitors!
Fish you'll miss the most:
There are so many good options it's hard to pick just one. I love the sailfin sculpins in the Ocean’s Heartbeat, the assortment of grunt sculpins and moss head warbonnets tucked away in barnacles in the Eelgrass Meadow, the china rockfish in Rocky Reef, and of course the yellow eye rockfish in Kelp Forest.
Three words to describe your summer at the Centre:
Intriguing, exciting, educational
Wild card: 10/10 rating for an excellent summer job