Turtle Times: Team 2 Monday, March 22, 2010

In the late afternoon EM and I have to share a shift because Rocky did nothing on her shift.
SA dropped in a cube of blood worms in Rocky's tank with the plastic still on!!! Rocky still snapped at it.
Rocky ate five cubes of blood worms, two cubes of vegetables, and seventy three Reptomin. He gobbled up every last bit!

Rocky still has the same eating habit.
Rocky has not done anything different but you can check out the other team 2 student blog.

Today was a half day so I didn't really get to do my part to feed Rocky so, I shared SA's part. Anyhow, more about that later. We got bloodworms for Rocky. Then S.A. fed Rocky bloodworms and before you know it... plop goes the whole wrapper into the filthy Rocky water. "Ewwwwww!!!!!" the team said. Just then S.A. reached her hand into the water an pulled out the bloodworms. Then S.A. plopped in the real bloodworms not the wrapper, and Rocky gobbled them up. Let's count, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Gosh, they are all gone. "Let's fed him some Reptomin". So BM dropped in about maybe 3 or 4 pieces of Reptomin. Then Rocky gobbled them up in let's count again, 1,2,3,4,5,6. All the Reptomin is gone. Done. No more. All of us gasped. "He ate that pretty fast." I said.

How We Found Rocky

“Can we run to the basketball court?” was the last thing that I heard before the commotion broke out. “TURTLE, A TURTLE!” “Everyone, I see a turtle!” Two girls screamed out in a chorus. When I looked down by my feet, I saw a little critter, the size of a 50¢ piece. It looked like it was covered with powdered cinnamon sugar. The first thought that popped into my head was “Oh my gosh, we could have stepped on it, but this must be it’s lucky day.” Then I thought, “I can’t let this moment pass without calling everyone over.” “Hey folks, come over here, there is a turtle.” The rest of the class ran over like stampeding buffalos, then stopped in their tracks, made a circle and sat down.

There was much chatter and many questions. I knew inevitably someone would ask, “Can we keep it?” I started to debate with myself. “If we keep it, I don’t have a turtle curriculum.” “That doesn’t matter, you’ll develop it as you go.” “Well, there is a Blanding’s turtle conservation project going on. What if this is Blanding’s turtle and we let it go? We will have missed the opportunity to participate.” “Go for it. Keep it. You can call the local turtle experts to get all the help you need.”

No sooner than I finished the debate, did that moment arrived. “Can we keep it?” a tiny voice chirped. Everyone held their breaths, waiting to hear my decision. “If we take it in, we need to understand that it isn’t a pet. The purpose of taking it in would be to act as stewards and raise it through the winter to give it a better chance of surviving.” I explained. A collective “Yeah!” filled the play ground. Little did I know, when we set foot on the playground that afternoon, that our school year would be changed forever. We are all the better for being the stewards of our guest turtle, Rocky.

Turtle Times

Today We Saw ... (May 27)

Team 2 Monday, March 22, 2010

Mother SNapper After Laying Eggs

More Mother Snapper

Mother Snapper's Spiky Tail

Mother Snapper's Sharp Claw

Mother Snapper's Strong Leg

Videos of Rocky

How We Found Rocky

Things We Had To Think About Before Keeping Rocky

Our Final Decision

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