A School Trip to the Aquarium

Erica was very excited. Today her teacher, Ms. Lane, was taking the entire class on a field trip to the aquarium. Erica had been to the zoo with her family, but she had never been to the aquarium.

On the bus ride to the aquarium Erica and her best friend Samantha talked about what they wanted to see the most.

“I want to see the penguins,” said Samantha.

“I want to see the fish,” said Erica.

When they got to the aquarium Ms. Lane lined the class up.

“We have to stay together,” Ms. Lane said. “This way no one will get lost.”

Erica listened to Ms. Lane and grabbed Samantha’s hand, and the class moved forward in one big group.

Their first stop in the aquarium was to see the penguins. Samantha was so excited that she ran right up to the glass.

Erica thought the penguins were cute, even though they smelled pretty bad. They walked funny outside of the water, but were graceful when they were swimming. As the class watched the penguins move around the rocks, Erica noticed that some of them walked together. Others had little baby penguins by their side.

“How come some of those penguins stay together?” Erica asked Ms. Lane.

“Well, some kinds of penguins stay together for a long time,” said Ms. Lane. “They keep each other warm, and they protect their babies. King penguins live in colonies with hundreds of other penguins.”

“Do they talk to each other?” asked Samantha.

“They do,” Ms. Lane said. “They use vocal signals. Or they use visual signals.”

“Like you do when you hold up your hand for us to be quiet,” Erica said.

“Yes, it’s like that,” said Ms. Lane. “You see my signal and you know to be quiet because I have something important to tell you. Penguins use signals to let other penguins know if there is danger.”

Ms. Lane pointed at a little baby penguin. “By staying in a group the older penguins are also able to keep their baby penguins fed,” she said. “Without the group the babies would get lost or go hungry.”

“I am glad they help each other,” said Samantha. Erica agreed.

Ms. Lane asked the class to line back up and to find their partners.

“Look, we are like the penguins,” said Samantha as she waddled next to Erica. That made Erica laugh.

The class moved as a group to the next room where there was a big tank full of fish. There were fish of all different shapes and sizes. Some were bright colors and some were darker colors. Most of the fish swam around on their own but there was also a group of little fish all swimming together.

“Why are all those little fish swimming together?” asked a boy in Erica’s class.

“Sometimes fish swim in a group for protection,” said Ms. Lane.

“What kind of protection?” Erica asked.

“Well, since they are small, if they were on their own other bigger fish could eat them,” said Ms. Lane. “But when they all swim together, they look like a bigger fish.”

The class looked into the tank at the group of little fish. Ms. La

ne was right; when they all swam together they looked a lot like a big fish.

“This way when a bigger fish sees them, it doesn’t realize that they are a whole bunch of small fish,” said Ms. Lane. “A group of fish that swim together is called a school.”

“Like us,” said Samantha. “We are a school because we all stay together, and no one gets lost.”

“Some schools of fish stick together in order to survive in their environment,” said Ms. Lane. “For instance, if it is cold, some fish will move together to warmer water.”

Erica watched the fish swim together. She liked that the fish and the penguins helped each other by staying in a group. Animals were smarter than she thought.

A Trip to Taughannock

Crunch, crunch, crunch. With each step she took, Eliza made a crunching sound on the stone path she was walking on. Her dad and brother, Kenyon, were far behind her. She always liked to run ahead. When she turned around to see if they were still there, they looked like little ants. They were at the bottom of the hill. “Come on, slowpokes!” she yelled down to them. Her voice echoed through the trees that lined the trail.

Up ahead, she could see a wooden bench. She slowly jogged to the rest stop and plopped down on a bench. To her right, she noticed an information sign. “Taughannock Falls State Park,” it read in big block letters at the top. Eliza remembered having a hard time learning how to spell the tricky name. Her dad taught her how to pronounce it, “Tuh-ga-nick,” but spelling it wasn’t easy. Underneath the heading, there were a few paragraphs about the big waterfall at the end of trail. Eliza noticed it mentioned where the name “Taughannock” might have come from. It either referred to a Native American chief who used to live in the area, or a Native American word, “Taconic,” which means “in the trees.”

Eliza already knew plenty about the park, since her father often drove her and her brother there from their home in Ithaca, New York. It was only a ten-minute drive. Eliza loved going to the state park. She would try to explore new trails, or look for little frogs and lizards. She would collect stones she found pretty and add them to her collection back home.

“You know, Taughannock Falls is one of the highest waterfalls around here,” her dad said when he and Kenyon reached the bench where Eliza was sitting. “We knowwww,” Eliza and Kenyon said at the same time. Every time they hiked in the park, their dad always told them the same facts. “It’s even taller than Niagara Falls!” their dad said, laughing. He liked to tease them.

They continued on the trail, stopping every so often for Eliza to pick up an interesting-looking stone. After twenty minutes, they noticed a dry creek bed down off the path. The light tan stone reached far into the distance, and formed a smooth surface of rock. Eliza noticed some small puddles in some areas. “Can we go dip our feet in the water?” she asked her dad. It was getting hot, and she wanted to cool down.

“Let’s go!” her dad said, and both Eliza and Kenyon went running down to the creek bed. “You know, this used to be full of water,” their dad said while they peeled off their shoes. “But since this has been such a hot summer, the creek dried up.”

Eliza tried to picture the smooth stone covered in flowing water, full of small fish and stones. She dipped her toe in one puddle, but it was too warm. It was shallow, so the sun heated the water. She looked for another puddle, deeper this time.

“Come over here!” Kenyon called out. He was standing by a larger pool of water, and started to splash water on his arms and legs. “This one is cool!”

After the three enjoyed what was left of the creek, they pulled their shoes on and started back on the trail. They wanted to get to the big waterfall. After walking for a while, Eliza noticed a wooden bridge in the distance. “We’re almost there!” she called out. She ran ahead, like usual, knowing that the bridge meant that they were close. Suddenly, she saw it. It looked like it stretched all the way up to the clouds. The water made a loud crashing noise as it hit the rocks at the bottom of the falls. It amazed her every time she saw it.

Looking for a Bear

“I want to see the bears!”

“I don’t care. I want to see the whales first.”

“But bears are so much better.”

“Yeah, if you’re seven. I’m ten now. I like whales.”

“So what? I want to see the bears.”

“I don’t care! Coming to the museum was my idea, and we’re seeing the whales first.”

“Bears!”

“Whales!”

“Bears!”

“Whales!”

“Mommmmm! Graham is being mean!” shouted Sarah. Everyone in the main lobby of the Museum of Natural History turned to look at her. Mom turned around with an embarrassed look on her face—the one that she called mortified.

“What did he do?” whispered Mom.

“He said that bears are for little kids, and that we have to see the whales first.”

“We’re going to see everything in the museum. We have all afternoon.”

“But I want to start with the bears.”

“Then you should have asked nicely instead of shouting. Graham, take us to the whales.”

Sarah’s heart sank. Graham didn’t even have to say anything. The look he gave her was bad enough. He was smiling ear to ear like one of the chimpanzees in the Africa exhibit. She dragged her feet all the way to Ocean Life. She knew she shouldn’t have shouted, but Graham made her so angry. And the simple fact was, they didn’t have all afternoon. It was 3:00 PM now, and the museum closed at 5:15 PM. Sarah had seen the sign. She had read her mother’s watch. She knew there was not much time left for bears.

Ever since they started learning about them the year before at school, Sarah had had bears on the brain. She had paid extra close attention during that unit and now knew all sorts of facts about bears. Grizzly bears were some of the biggest in the world, and they were her favorite.

“Did you know,” she asked her mother, “that grizzly bears can get as big as 850 pounds?”

“I did, Sarah. You mentioned that several times in the car.”

“Well, did you know they can run 35 miles an hour?”

“Yes, I did.”

“That’s speeding in some places!” said Sarah, but Mom didn’t seem to care.

“Whales are way bigger than bears,” said Graham. “That means they’re better.”

“Yeah, but whales live in the ocean.”

“So what’s wrong with the ocean?”

“It means they’re wet all the time. And they smell like fish.”

“You smell like fish!” Graham cracked up. Clearly, he thought he was very clever.

“How big are whales?” asked Sarah.

“What do you mean?”

“Grizzly bears weigh 850 pounds. How much do whales weigh?”

“Uh…I don’t know. A whole lot.”

Sarah scoffed. Graham didn’t even know anything about whales. He just wanted to make sure she was unhappy. She had been looking forward to this trip for months. She read about the museum online, about all the dioramas that were built in the 1940s. They were a very old-fashioned kind of exhibit, but they looked beautiful in the pictures. It was as close as she could get to a real bear, and she had stayed up all the night before thinking about it. And now Graham was ruining the fun.

The Ocean Life exhibit was dark and quiet. Spooky sounds filtered down from the speakers which were supposed to make them feel like they were underwater. Sarah didn’t feel underwater. She just felt grumpy.

“Oh look,” she said. “A whale.”

“That’s a humpback whale,” said Graham, doing his best to show off.

“No, it’s not. It’s a beluga whale. Read the sign.”

The model of the beluga was one of the ugliest animals she had ever seen. It had a smooshed-up face and a sad grey color, and it looked like it definitely smelled like fish.

“Well I think it’s so good that I’m going to stand here and appreciate it,” said Graham. “For a while.”

“Mom—can I please just go look at the bears by myself?” asked Sarah.

“No,” said Mom. “You have to stay in this room.”

As Graham pretended to be interested in the whale, Sarah watched the seconds tick by on her mother’s watch. Finally, she couldn’t take the beluga any longer. She stomped away, her arms swinging at her side, looking desperately for something in the Ocean Life exhibit that wasn’t ugly, boring, or stinky. And then, from across the room, she saw it.

It was a diorama of Alaskan seals swimming just below a sheet of ice. Above them, peering hungrily into the water was a polar bear, looking so real that Sarah flinched when she saw it. It had snow-white fur, a wet-looking, black nose, and claws as sharp as razor blades. As Sarah pressed her face up against the glass to look at it, she forgot about the whales behind her. The polar bear was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.