The Love Maine Lobsters’ Mobile Lobster Sales Business is an environmentally responsible way to provide a nice living for your family and your efforts help support a national marine aquarium grant program. Everyone Wins: the Independent Dealers who make nice profits, students since lobster sales support marine science education and the environment because the Maine lobster Industry is recognized as a model for sustainable fishing.

The American lobster fishery is Maine’s signature fishery.  In 2009, the dockside value of Maine lobster was $185 million, with an estimated economic impact on the state economy of $500 million, supporting 5930 commercial lobster/crab licenses.

The role of lobstering dominates Maine’s fishing economy.  A combination of lobster abundance and various changes in technology resulted in a shift from various inshore fisheries to a virtually single species fishery and a dependence on lobster that is unprecedented in Maine’s fishing history, so important to Maine’s way of life that lobster sustainability and management occurs at many levels.

Maine regulates the fishery through legislative action and Department of Marine Resources.  The state participates in interstate management through the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.  Maine has delegated some authority directly to the lobster industry, which is one of the most significant examples of co-management in the country.

The state is divided into seven management zones each of which is divided into voting districts. Lobstermen elect representatives to a council that helps enact legislation designed to ensure the sustainability of Maine lobster, have the power to limit entry in the zone through an entry/exit ratio, and one member from each zone sits on the statewide Lobster Advisory Council.

Maine lobster regulations protect both juveniles and large lobsters through a dual gauge system that includes a minimum and maximum length and limit each boat to 800 traps. Lobstermen voluntarily notch the tails of egged-out female protecting them from harvest for several years ensuring an abundant female lobster population prime for reproduction. Furthermore, Lobster fishing is restricted to traps, and Maine regulates lobster traps dimensions so that vents release undersized lobsters.

The Maine Lobster Industry thrives because of an historical co-management effort that protects people, lobster and the environment. The Love Maine Lobsters’ Mobile Lobster Sales Business provides an unique opportunity to support marine aquarium education, while establishing a business in a proven industry that will last generation after generation  after generation. Contact Love Maine Lobsters to learn more about this profitable opportunity, tell them that Touch-Tank sent you.

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Here are some useful resources that help educators get more out of their educational marine aquariums. The Delaware Sea Grant College Program offers a variety of free or low-cost resources to K-12 teachers seeking  earth,ocean, and environmental science information and curriculum materials.

This Horseshoe crab model includes many details about the life of a horseshoe crab.

Publication Date:

January 1, 2006

Life-sized, three-dimensional paper model, which can be assembled with tape in approximately 15 minutes. A great activity for 4th graders and up. Includes background information on the horseshoe crab and a crossword puzzle to test readers’ knowledge.

Cost: $1. Copies are free to Delaware schoolteachers for classroom use. Requests should be submitted on school letterhead.

For more information on how this publication correlates to state science standards, click here.

To order, download this order form or contact the UD Marine Public Education Office at 302-831-8083

Touch-Tank provides educational support for all teaching aquarium enthusiast free of charge. Students learn a vast amount when they observe the behaviors and actions of an Eco-system that they are actually reading about in textbooks. The aquarium tank information discussed on this site  includes powerful ways to enhance education in any setting.

Touch-Tank hopes that you find the ocean and environmental science information and curriculum helpful. If you do, please leave a comment and bookmark this page:)

This site is created and maintained by Shannon Mae Development, Inc.

Marine biology is the scientific study of ocean organisms. Marine life is an enormous resource that contributes food, medicine, and other important materials to the people of the world. Ocean organisms contribute significantly to the oxygen cycle, help regulate the Earth’s climate, and some ocean organisms even help create new land.

The oldest private marine laboratory in the country is the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. It currently supports a year-round staff of more than 275 scientists while working in such fields as cell and developmental biology, ecology, microbiology, molecular evolution, global infectious disease, neurobiology, and sensory physiology.

Ocean Organisms

Biologists value ocean organisms because they serve as excellent models for understanding all living systems. The Aquatic Resources Division of the Marine Resources Center at the Marine Biological Laboratory collects and distributes marine animals to qualified researchers, institutions and marine science educational programs. The vast array of quality ocean organisms are listed in a catalog found on the MBL website. If the internet does not work for you, request by mail at PO Box 546 Woods Hole, MA 02543 or by Phone at 508-548-8294.

The Marine Resources Center (MRC) maintains cultures, and provides aquatic organisms to biological, biomedical, and ecological research. Service and education also play important and complementary roles in this 32,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility. The MRC and its life support systems have increased the ability of MBL scientists to conduct research and have inspired new concepts in scientific experiments. The MRC provides a variety of community services through its Aquatic Resources Division, Aquaculture and Engineering Division, and Administrative Division.

A great resource for educators using marine aquariums to reach students is a Teachers’ Guide: Lessons and Activities created by Wood Hole Aquarist Beck Lash. After teaching third grade for thirteen years in a large public school, Becky Lash is now the aquarist at the Woods Hole Science Aquarium. As a complement to her work at Woods Hole, Becky provides hands-on demonstration about earthworms, she demonstrates the life and habits of worms, while stressing their benefits to people and the natural world, a riveting lecture appropriate for all ages.

Becky Lash, a fantastic teacher and gifted aquarist said this about working at Woods Hole, “It’s great fun. I get to tend to a harbor seal, sea turtles, all kinds of fish and inverts, and at the end of the day I’m soaking wet and smell like dead squid.”

The Teachers Guide ( Downloadable PDF): Lessons and Activities called: Ocean Animal Aquarium, Collection of Intertidal Organisms, Mini-Marine Ecosystem offers many interesting ways to use your educational aquariums as a teaching resources including:

• What can you do with an ocean animal aquarium in your classroom?
• How can you involve the students in its set-up and maintenance?
• How can you keep the students’ interest level high and continue to have the aquarium be a focal point of activities, rather than neglected once the initial novelty wears off?
• How can you use the aquarium to teach across curriculum areas?

This teachers’ guide offers suggestions for activities and ways to integrate the aquarium into daily classroom activities, ideas include:

Create a slideshow on the computer. Using an application such as KidPix or Powerpoint, have each student research an ocean organisms, make a drawing, and record a voice-over of information about that animal.

Keep an observation journal,  a notebook next to the tank, where students record their observations and thoughts. It could be a different student’s job each day to write something in it, or students could make entries whenever they have something they’d like to write about.

Marine Biological Laboratory Teachers Guide created by Becky Lash helps you and your students better understand the ocean organisms that live in marine aquariums, and if you are in need of marine life to live in your marine touch tank, contact the Marine Resources Center at Woods Hole, Massachusetts today.

Join the marine science discussion (:Here:)

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Teaching aquarium innovator  and 5th grade teacher at West Harpswell Elementary School located in Maine, Mrs. Giberson and some her students share their science classroom tank experience through a interesting video.  Topics include: maintenance, feeding, and handling the creatures of the cold-water  touch tank. Enjoy! Grants Available

This video of a science classroom tank is one of the best that Touch-Tank as ever seen. Many schools, museums, educational centers and even businesses make the decision to install a science classroom tank aquarium as a means to reach students and educate customers.

They reduce stress allowing for superior learning, minimize nervousness relaxing students helping them learn and lessens anxiety assisting small children who aren’t used to being away their parents  adjust to the new environment.

They show students how fish live, demonstrate the value of natural aquatic habitats, teach children responsibilities as they care for the live inhabitants, and encourage respect as caretakers learn to nurture and care for those more vulnerable than themselves.

Aquariums teach people about the importance of marine and aquatic resources and they are great fun! If you want to explore the possibilities of supplying a superior teaching experience to your students, apply for a Touch Tanks for Kids Grant and discover how to bring a science classroom tank to a location near you.

Having an educational aquarium in the classroom has a number of benefits, including learning, health and environmental benefits. This is why so many educators use touch tanks to reach students, parents and yes, even administrators. Touch-Tank hopes that you enjoyed this video of a science classroom tank has much as we did!

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Recently, Touch-Tank saw the most fascinating email. The message was from, Heather Stapleton, the Education Coordinator of the Environmental Learning Center (ELC) in Vero Beach, Florida regarding their new acrylic fish aquarium made by Marine Ecological Habitats of Biddeford, Maine.

THIS IS GREAT!!!….from”_” a ELC touch tank volunteer,

Without the ELC I probably wouldn’t love the environment and I would not have had the chance to experience some of the things.

Ever since the touch tank opened it really opened my eyes to how much I love marine life. Without getting to volunteer I could not have had the opportunity to get to know everything that’s in the ELC like the sea hare.

I have always loved being outside and nature but I thought I would want to be a doctor but now I want to a biologist. The ELC has helped me realize something that I love and want to continue with it in the future.

The good news is that the ELC offers education programs for students some of which include lessons about the creatures who live in ELC’s new acrylic fish aquarium. The formal programs fill up quickly, so have your teacher contact Heather, the Education Coordinator at the ELC, at 772-589-5050 or heather@DiscoverELC.org for more information.

The ELC offers an elevated boardwalk system meandering through a mangrove forest, a Wet Lab with loads of touchable exhibits and aquaria with marine life, a Dry Lab with more exhibits, a pre-school play area, interactive computers, native plant gardens, picnic pavilions and more.

For a great educational experience stop by the ELC of  Vero Beach, and to get the most from your visit, purchase the Trek & Tracks field guide in the Entry Pavilion.

Remember to stop by ELC’s newest attraction, a new L shaped marine tank that they purchased with help from a Touch Tanks for Kids Grant.

The July Touch Tank Schedule at the ELC
Sat July 10: 10a – 12p
Sun July 11: 2p – 4p
Sat July 17: 10a – 12p
Sun July 18: 2p – 4p
Sat July 24: 10a – 12p
Sun July 25: 2p – 4p

For more information, check out the PROGRAM SCHEDULE and THE ELC CAMPUS pages on the Environmental Learning Center website, AND when you visit, tell them what you think about the new acrylic fish aquarium.

This site is created and maintained by Shannon Mae Development, Inc.