Atherton’s Marine Biology Club went on an exciting field trip to the Newport Aquarium on November 19th at Newport, Kentucky. This field trip was for students in the marine biology class or club to learn more about the diversity of ocean life and talk about how animals live in an aquarium setting.
Asia Agrinsoni (9) and Helena Finney (9) are members of the Marine Biology Club. They both have a passion for marine wildlife and were fascinated by the amount of exhibits there were at Newport.
“My mom got me into marine biology a lot when I was younger, and I would get to know a lot of fun facts about sea animals. Getting to see new sea animals this year was something I thought was really fun, in my opinion,” said Arginsoni.
“It was a very educational experience, there were plenty of interactive exhibits that I would think is fun for younger kids as well,” Finney said.
Alongside the club, Marine Biology class discussed their experiences of the Newport Aquarium. They expressed enthusiasm for the educational values and how the aquarium had many unique exhibits such as the touch pools and play places.
Bennett’s Marine Biology class gave a lot of positive reviews of this fieldtrip. As a class learning to learn more about aquatic life, the Newport Aquarium showed a bunch of facts about each creature and exhibits.
Carlile Cox (10) had a huge experience of being able to look around the exhibits. Cox’s future career was being able to have a pathway towards marine biology, where this field trip helped her discover the types of sea creatures that were around the Aquarium.
“It’s really interesting to be able to take the stuff we learned in class, be able to see how that is transferred, like, actual animals and their behaviors,” said Cox.
Adam Olin (12) is also part of the Marine Biology class and enjoyed the diversity between both the ocean and nature life.
“As far as we know, as humans, the ocean is the strangest place in the entire universe that has the weirdest life,” Olin said.
Marine biology teacher Barbara Bennett would always host these types of trips at least once a year and would alternate between the Newport Aquarium in Kentucky and the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga.
During this field trip, Bennett wanted students to learn and meet new sea creatures that they’ve learned about in class or in the club and to be able to enjoy their time looking through all the wide variety of marine animals, from pufferfish to stingrays, that the Newport Aquarium had for them.
“The group this year did really well and took their time to look through all the exhibits. They asked questions and were able to look at the small details, and this year everybody did a really nice job of that.” Bennett said.
Throughout the Marine Biology Field Trip, everyone has enjoyed their time by being able to experience the aquatic environment and learning something new in Newport and would believe that it would be nice to go back again for next year.