Hands on Museum

We went to the Hands on Museum and dissected a squid. Rayanna was my partner. First we needed to look at the outside of the squid and study it. It had spots called chromatophores. They are different sizes so that it can camouflage itself. Then we cut inside the squid. We learned that a squid has three hearts. The squid has two tentacles, the rest are arms. The squid has a beak inside of its mouth. The squid even has ink inside of its body. We burst the ink sack and tried to write our name with it. It was not very easy to write with squid ink. It has a pen-like thing inside to hold the shape of its body. Have you ever seen a squid before? If you have, have you noticed that it doesn't swim smoothly but instead it swims in spurts? Well, the thing that helps the squid move like that is called a siphon.
By McKenna




The purplish color is the ink after the sack was burst. The blue and pink is artificial dye injected into the squid to help one study the veins and arteries.


My favorite part of the squid was the chromatophores. They are little dots on the bottom of the squid and are all different sizes. They camauflage the squid. The mouth is very cool. It is under the tentacles on the top. My partner was Mitchell. The gills looked like leaves on the side of the squid. The gills are used for breathing. A squid has a beak. It is in a little ball down its throat. We split the ball and the beak looked a little like a bird's beak. We got a toothpick and busted the squid's ink pouch. We used the ink to write our name. Our squid was a male. Almost everyones was a male, but there were a couple of females. The females have a fluffy mass inside their body that males do not have.
By Keegan




There were 20 kids participating in the squid dissection.



We went to the Hands On Museum, and I got to learn about about Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches. I got to pet the cockroach. The cockroaches live in Madagascar. They are called Hissing Cockroaches because they hiss at you. But when I held it, it did not hiss at me. It did not hiss at anybody. They are bigger than other cockroaches. Look at the picture below these words. When the lady put her hand out with the roach, she turned it upside down. The roach did not fall off because there is a sticky pad and claws on the roach. The lady told us that it kind of tickles, but it does not hurt when she holds the roach upside down and it sticks on.
By Braden



There were about 15 kids participating in this program while the other kids dissected the squid.




The Hands on Museum has a grocery store that is fun to play in. In the picture below, I am buying everything in the store. There is a cash register that gives fake money out. Ronnie showed me how to get the money out of the cash register.