Seventh Project: Oceans

About a month ago, Adam asked to use the computer for homework. He said that his teacher asked them to write down the names of three ocean animals, for their next unit on Oceans.

I really didn't think much of it.

I should have.

Because of those three names, they had to pick one to use as the subject of their April project.

And... if you know Adam, you know he just couldn't choose something simple like a dolphin or a shark.

Nope.

He chose the "tongue-eating louse."

I've never heard of one of those; I thought it sounded kinda like science-fiction, you know?

They exist.

Fun Fact of the Day on the W* Blog:

The tongue-eating louse is a parasite that lives in the ocean off the Pacific Coast. They use their little claws to dig through the red snapper's gills, and attach themselves to the tongue. They feed off of the blood from the tongue, until the tongue is a small stub. It then attaches itself to the tongue muscle, and acts as the fish's tongue, manipulating the food back, like a tongue would, and eating the food particles that the fish eats.

SO gross.

And yet, SO kinda interesting.

Unfortunately, there is not a book labeled, The Tongue-Eating Louse available in our local library, nor is there a ton of information on it on-line. So, research was a little more difficult this time around.

Also unfortunate (to Adam), our local Petsmart does not have any tongue-eating louse for him to bring in and show his class.

He ended up making a diorama. He used an old box, and mixed 4 different almost-empty bottles of blue paint to paint it, and then used some random items we had around to make it ocean-ish. He drew and glittered the red snapper, which is "swimming" by fishing line, and if you look close in the snapper's mouth, you will see a whitish creature (with a small googly-eye, of course) sitting there.

That's the tongue-eating louse.

That has already eaten the tongue of the snapper.

We were able to go to his project today, and he did wonderful! It was the first time this year that Mike's been able to see him present, and he was blown away at how far he has come. The best part was during the "Question Time," where his class members asked him questions they had about the tongue-eating louse. He answered them all so professionally. Even the answers that he didn't know, he did his best to answer them.

We are so proud of him and all that he has accomplished this year!