Tyrell Williams Primary School’s students visit Marine World
“A practical experience of learning Science in a fun and exciting way”…says Gary Morian
By Stanford Conway
Editor-in-Chief - SKNVibes.com
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – PUPILS and teachers of the Tyrell Williams Primary School visited the Marine World Limited facility at South Friars Bay and are now better informed about the care and importance of Sea Lions and Seals and other marine life.
The visit, which is part of a science popularisation programme, was organised by local businessman Arthur Sharpe and SKNVibes to allow the pupils an opportunity to learn about the marine animals and interact with them, especially the four Sea Lions and Five Fur Seals [including a pup].
The children and their teachers were taken on an educational tour of the facility by the head trainer of the marine animals, Hugo Perez, and his team, and participated in the feeding of the Fur Seals and one of the Sea Lions.
The excited children were also exposed to a shark being fed by one of the animal trainers, who was also in the water playing with a fever of Stingrays and allowed the visiting group to fearlessly run their hands along the animals’ large pectoral fins.
The trainer, a Jamaican-national, who gave his name only as O’Neil, told SKNVibes the part of the Stingrays that are dangerous to humans were surgically removed for safety.
O’Neil also explained that the shark is of a species called “Nurse Sharks” and could be found in tropical and sub-tropical waters. “They are very prevalent in the Caribbean, have very strong jaws, a stout body, a wide head, sluggish and are harmless unless provoked”.
He said the Nurse Sharks have the smallest teeth in the shark family and because of their docile nature many people would dive into their domain and try to feed them with fish, “but feeding them can be dangerous if one is not familiar with their characteristics because they suck while feeding. The suction of these animals is very strong…they can suck in a fish as fast as seven milli-seconds, which is actually less than one quarter of a second; and this means one’s hand can get into their mouths while feeding and this can be dangerous”.
The children were also engaged in an exercise of finding a name for the pup [baby Seal]. They had made written suggestions of both male and female names because at this stage of the pup’s life there is a high degree of uncertainty of its sex.
However, head trainer Hugo told this media house that it is more likely to be a female. He also said that since the arrival of the Sea Lions and Fur Seals, they have been responding very favourably to their training routine.
Chief Operations Officer of Sea World Ltd. Chris Evelyn declared that Arthur Sharpe had brought the sea mammals to St. Kitts for educational purposes, especially for the school children, “on the importance of their preservation and care as well as how they can be used in saving human lives”.
~~Adz:Left~~Evelyn also stated that he was scheduled to meet with Chief Education Officer Patrick Welcome to arrange a programme for all the schools in the Federation to visit the site and “once we have exhausted that then we will move on to the general public”.
Gary Morian, a teacher at the Basseterre High School and one of the organisers of the recently concluded SCIMATECH Fair, had initiated the tour.
He told SKNVibes that the tour was part of a programme to further popularise Science and Technology among school children in St. Kitts.
“This programme would not have been possible without a number of key stakeholders. First of all, UNESCO, who sponsored a number of activities that we saw in recent times such as the National SCIMATECH Fair, National Science Olympiad, a Teachers’ Workshop, and today this trip is organised as part of the aim in making Science and Technology more popular among the students.
“Of course too, the tour was facilitated by Mr. Arthur Sharpe and through our contacts at SKNVibes we were able to make this trip a possibility. The students would have learnt from this tour and it is good to learn science, but when it is learnt in a fun and exciting way I think that a lifetime attachment to the subject will be realised,” Morian said.
He is also of the view that the pupils would have learnt much from the 90-minute exposure to the sea animals.
“They would have learnt because I saw the trainers and keepers of the animals explaining certain things to them. For example, they spoke about the Sea Lions and Fur Seals and explained that they are mammals. They also educated the children about the mammals’ breeding system as well as their protection system…the furry coat. Therefore, it was a practical experience…a thing that people do not ordinarily get in the classroom,” Morian concluded.
