Malissa checking in a Portuguese Man of War

The 4th and 5th grade girls apart of the Under the Sea camp had the privilege of skyping with Malissa Smith, Special Exhibits Aquarist that works at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Illinois.  Malissa worked specifically with Jellyfish, which she affectionately referred to as “jellies”.  She informed us on how jellyfish reproduce, eat, live, and protect themselves.  The type of jellyfish she works with more specifically are called the Moon Jelly.  Our guest speaker informed us that different jellyfish have varying amount of stinging tentacles, and the moon jelly’s sting only felt like a bug bite.   The Girlstart girls were then allowed to ask questions.  Some of the new facts we learned were:  the biggest jellyfish can have up to 100 feet long tentacles, when jellyfish reproduce they have thousands of babies that look like star shapes then grow their tentacles.  We also learned that at aquariums there are special types of tanks the jellyfish are put in to simulate a moving ocean.  Jellyfish are a very interesting part of marine life, and they are very different from humans because have no brains.  All the girls agreed that being an aquarist like our speaker would be a very cool job!

Girlstart's first week of Under the Sea and Girlstart Games wraps up this Friday. Here are a few things the Under the Sea girls did!

Turtle Rescue

Starfish Dissection

Do you think you can float a ping pong ball? Try out this experiment and see if you can make it float! As a bonus see if you can float two or three ping pong balls at one time!

After two weeks of training, camp officially started yesterday. Girlstart is excited for another fun, loud and hot summer!

Here are the young ladies that make each day unique and exciting for our girls.

Front row (L to R): Grace, Hailey, Shalini, Rachel
Back row (L to R): Kayla, Wendy, Lizzie, Gaby, Sarah, Brooke

Don't worry if you missed the Meet the STEM Counselor blogs, click here!