Fun With Scissors

Seleia and Elora have been looking forward to today's OMSI lab for months. Squid dissection! Seleia, my science girl, loves to dissect and for Elora Kay this was a first. Seleia was proud to already know that a squid could grow to 40 feet and that their eye and it's muscles are very similar to that of a human (Thanks, Jonathan Park!) but both girls were interested to learn that the two longest tentacles work like the squid's "feet" and help them get around, while the smaller tentacles work like hands and grab it's food, putting it into the squid's mouth. They learned to tell the male from the female (don't ask me, I don't know) and removed the "pen" which is basically the squid's spine (in Elora's hand), and got to draw in the squid's ink with it. Twisted, but cool. The class got to see up close through a high power microscope.  They removed the ink sac, the brain, three hearts (Says Seleia, "It has more hearts than Doctor Who!), two gills and the eyeballs. I wasn't there for the bulk of the class, just the last 10 minutes (I got to draw in squid ink, too!) but everyone was smiling and attentive when I arrived and they could not stop raving about the class. I doubt I could have handled this ate age 7 (or 9, for that matter) without totally grossing out, so I have total respect for these girls. They so rock.