At first, I didn’t know where I was going to go.  I knew I couldn’t actually visit a coral reef, so I decided that I should go to an aquarium. Before I start going on and on  about planning my visit, I should give you some background information. First of all, my main inquiry question is “How does the health of fish in aquariums compare to the health of fish living in coral reefs?” My main inquiry question gave me two basic choices for a site visit, a coral reef, or an aquarium. Naturally, I chose to go to an aquarium. So, my family planned a visit to the Maritime Aquarium on May 27. Before, I could plan my visit, I had to make sure that this aquarium is a good place for my site visit, so I went to the aquarium once to make sure. Turns out that this aquarium was a great place for my site visit, so I had everything planned. I wondered about all the things that I would learn at my site visit. While I was there, I started to think about who I was going to interview, so I talked to the other workers, at the time, the aquarium was about to close, so they gave me a list of people that might help me. I looked for people who could help me with my project, and I found Tyler Moery. Here is a link to my interview blog post. Here is a link to the Maritime Aquarium Website

My site visit was at the Maritime Aquarium in Connecticut, on May 27. It was at an aquarium because my main inquiry question compares the health of fish in aquariums to fish in coral reefs. When I first got there, I talked to some people about the health of the fish in the aquarium that I was visiting, they said that the fish were pretty healthy in their aquarium. I visited a fishing booth to help me understand how the fish are brought to the aquarium. I also visited the coral reef section of the aquarium, to help me understand how aquariums imitate a coral reef in their fish tanks. I found that the fish are rescued by people who work in aquariums when currents bring them up from their coral reef homes. I also found out that a lot of the coral reef fish in that aquarium are bred in captivity, so they don’t have to be taken from their homes. According to my research, fish seem stressed when they first arrive from the wild, or from another aquarium, so I looked for the signs that the fish were stressed.  Overall, I had a very good time on my site visit.

Here are some of my pictures