Objective:
The student will be able to describe some typical fish behavior based upon observations of aquarium fish during a 5-10 minute period.
Materials Needed:
Activity:
Review the Backgrounder on Animal Behavior.
Ask the students to make a brief profile of their own behavior during a typical day. Pose questions such as:
Tell students that aquatic scientists spend lots of time (hours and hours!) observing fish and recording data about their observations. Today, each student will become an aquatic scientist.
Students will work in pairs for this lesson plan. Each pair will pick any fish in the Aquademics™ aquarium and observe it for 5-10 minutes. One partner calls time every 15 seconds and records behaviors listed on Aquademics™ Science Worksheet #2. The other partner describes what the fish is doing when time is called.
Distribute Aquademics™ Science Worksheet #2 and go over the list of possible fish behaviors. Show students how to make a "tic" mark on each line if that particular behavior is observed. Tell students NOT to guess at the fish's behavior if it is in a crevice or missing from view at the time interval; in this case, they should place a "tic" mark on the line for NOT SEEN.
At the end of the specified time period, ask student groups to tally their "tic" marks and to make a graph showing the frequency of various fish behaviors. Invite them to comment on and discuss which behaviors were seen and why.
Each pair should have at least 20 "tic" marks at the end of the specified time period.
Result:
Have students draw the outline of a fish on a blank piece of paper. Ask them to write at least four different observed fish behaviors inside the outline.
Portions of this page reprinted courtesy of the National Aquarium in Baltimore