Crabs, Moon jellies, and Striped Bass! Oh my!

This is my fourth week at the Boston Children's Museum and this Tuesday we caught our second striped bass!! Oftentimes our most exciting catches come from the crab trap. We will get green crabs, spider crabs, cunner fish and baby flounder fish. The only thing we really catch on our fishing rods are crabs. Parents, or the adults responsible for the kids, often ask us what we are fishing for and we say anything that will bite but realistically we almost exclusively catch crabs, but this makes it even more exciting when we catch something other than crabs.

It was a regular Tuesday day at the Boston Children's Museum. It was a toasty day with the temperature wavering between high 80's to low 90's with a high percentage of humidity. Luckily we had a tent to protect our touch tank from the sweltering sun, as well as ourselves! The first half of our shift (10am-1pm) was a bit slow, with less than 60 visitors. The second half was very busy. We had several camp groups come through, all eager to fish and test their luck. There were kids at each pole but then, one young girl, just nine years old, started to feel a particularly strong tug. We saw the pole started to bob up and down. Imani quickly rushed to assist the girl reel up the rod but it still seemed too strong for both of them. I decided to try and steady the line by grabbing it so Imani could reel it in. Even that was difficult! This fish was a fighter. Eventually we were able to lift the fish from the water and into the touch tank. It was 25 inches long!! Our tank was not big enough so we had to let it go soon after we caught it but not before dozens of people ran over to check out our latest catch.

I hope to catch more fish soon! It truly is an exciting time for the people at the BCM.

Sea you later,
Ellen

Two Beach Events: Completely Different Experiences

With four weeks down and three to go (for me at least!), I have worked at Blacks Creek, Piers Park, and the Boston Children's Museum. As stated in previous posts, I have enjoyed working at various locations because each audience, setting, and set of activities are unique to each site. This is why I enjoy working beach events. So far I have completed two beach events this summer: one at Nantasket Beach and one at Carson Beach. I have liked the beach events because they allow me to interact with a new audience in a new setting with new activities.

The event at Nantasket Beach was a sand raking event with Andres Amador, a professional landscape artist. The event was basically several open sessions with Andres where people followed the instructions of Andres to create art in the sand. I participated in the first session to assist Andres in any way he needed. We began to create different shapes in the sand, such as circles, squares, spirals, etc. After the first session, Andres asked everyone at the session to say a word that described their experience. Some of the words stated were calming, imaginative, and fun. Numerous people came up to the session or to the open sand raking section of the beach saying, "I am not creative enough". Once they started raking the sand, however, they realized their artwork was beautiful and that sand raking is less restrictive as drawing or other forms of artwork. The pictures from that event have not yet been published.

Our sand raking crew!

The second beach event I participated in was the Beach Bash and Splash! It was at Carson's Beach, a place I have not been to yet. There were several activities our staff were leading, but I was at the face painting station. Upon arrival, I had no idea what I would be doing but I was excited to learn that I would be at the face painting station. At first I was really insecure about my face painting skills. I was insecure because I did not want the kids to be embarrassed or for people to ask what the kid was supposed to be. After painting a few kids' faces, I noticed how happy they were once I painted their face despite how "good" it was. It definitely taught me that being "good" often times prevents me from having fun and being in the moment. Working with kids this summer has taught me lessons like this.

One of the faces I painted!

Sea you later,

Ellen

Wednesday woes

This Wednesday went from 0 to one hundred rather quickly. My day started out pretty well honestly, I got to black's creek and met all the other save the harbor save the bay staffs Ana, Nieomi, and Edward.(Zach drove me to black's creek so he was there too) And after we all got the supplies ready for the first group of children. The first group had a good time, they found a good amount of green crabs, hermit crabs, and even a rare minnow. And played some games Gaga ball and some other things like Mr. fox and Uncle Sam. And then we dismissed the first group and prepared for the second one. This is when the the rain kind of started but it was only drizzling. We still got through the day and ended up stopping a rather quickly, so we went back to crab catching, letting the kids have fun and playing games like a couple Uncle Sam, kickball, and Mr. Fox. And we ended at the  regular time of 12 o'clock. After lunch we got in at Boston children's museum and as soon as we
got in the rain gave no mercy. It started pouring bullets and we had to get under a tent and see if any people would like to look at the crabs under that tent after a good hour of waiting for people. We decided to bring our crabs inside the BCM and show them crabs and we ended up finishing our jobs inside the Museum.

Me "enjoying" the rain.

Hopefully the rain goes easy on us from now on...

~Eric Joseph

New Experiences Happen Daily

When I'm not spending my time taking in the majesty that is Blacks Creek, I find myself in the hustle and bustle that is the Boston seaport, working outside the Children's Museum. I always like this change of pace, as you never know who is going to come by, or what exactly is going to happen there on any given day. I guess that's true of any site, but there's some kind of energy when you're in the city, that makes things feel different. For starters, there's such a diversity in the characteristics of visitors. Many come from all over the country, or even from other parts of the world, and this is really their first experience becoming familiar with the Boston Harbor. I always feel that it is of extra importance with these visitors to impart the lessons learned with the Boston Harbor clean up, as they may be able to take that way of thinking back to where they came, and fix any potential issue that their area is facing. Of course, this is difficult when there is a language barrier, like when I was attempting to teach a girl how to properly hold a crab, only to be informed by her mother that she only spoke French. Unfortunately, I took Spanish in school, so I really did not have much information, but we were still able to work it out so that she did not get pinched.

Something that was new to me, holding a jellyfish!

I would say that is definitely the main difference between my work at the Children's Museum and Black's Creek, that it was the time spent with a given individual. At Black's Creek, kids would come twice each week, and quickly picked up all the information that we gave them, such that they were experts by the time they left. With that, the novelty of the situation wore off, and we did not need to continuously instruct them on their technique and cool crab facts. At the Children's Museum, it's important to remember that even though this information is nothing new to us, to our visitors it normally is, and we need to present it as such. I think it was really put in perspective to me, when I was working with a boy who was visiting with his day camp. He had been fishing. I had already shown him the green crabs, and due to his interest, had him help me pull up the crab trap to see if we had caught anything, which we had. As we were walking away, he asked me, "Can you show us some other new things?" I was caught off guard, as these experiences that had been the standard of my summer, were so new and exciting to this boy, and I remembered that it was once that way for me too. I stopped for a second to think of what I could show him next, but then he was off to go play with his friends, and I didn't have anything new to show him anyway. But, I would like to think about if there was more I could have covered, as we are in such a unique position to spread the word very far!

Sam and Ana playing with the toy fish.

That's not to say that things are tired and routine at the Children's Museum, as we the staff frequently find ways to spice up our work day. Most recently, there was a day where we tied a toy fish to a fishing rod, just to play around with it. Ana and Sam were really getting into it, where Sam would pull it up, while Ana would try to catch it in our net. I think the two of them had more fun than the kids with this experience. I know the kids liked to watch us bounce it on the water, and pretend it was a real fish. Apparently, it was so realistic that a parent thought we were swinging around a dead fish, but I would like to assure everyone that we here at Save the Harbor would never behave in such a distasteful manner, but we always have time to play around and have fun!

Until next time, I'll be thinking of more new things to show off,
Zach

Neither Snow nor Rain nor Heat nor Gloom

For those of you who have ever been outside during the summer, you'll know that there is quite the variety of weather that one can experience. You have the very hot and muggy days, the cold and rainy days, and plenty of days that are in between. So far this week at Save the Harbor, it feels as if we've managed to fit an entire summers worth of weather events into only half of a week. While this may seem like it would throw a wrench in our activities, there's always a back up plan or a different way to do things than originally thought.

Playing "What Time is it Mr. Fox?" in the field at Blacks Creek!

We started off with a cold and gloomy weekend. When I was working the event in Hull on Saturday, I was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, as it was chilly! Thankfully we were in a corner, sheltered from the wind, or I might have ended up as frozen as that flounder. By Tuesday, things had warmed up quite a bit, and we had the opposite issue. It was so hot, that even just standing in the sun would be enough to cause us to start sweating. Thankfully at Blacks Creek we are able to go wading, and I must say that there is nothing quite like a dip into that cool water after standing out in the hot sun. Honestly, if I had not been working, I would likely have ended up swimming in the water. It seems I was not the only one with that idea, as one of the boys in our program ended up dripping from head to toe, after he went a little too deep in the water in pursuit of a crab. Good thing he was wearing his life jacket! While the heat was immense, all the kids, and the staff needed was copious amounts of water to drink, and we were all ready to continue hunting for animals and playing our favorite game, Gagaball. Of course, we played everything in this tiny patch of shade on the field, as it was too hot anywhere else!

Rain doesn't stop Garrett from fishing, until
we had to reel him in due to a boom of thunder!

The thing about weather in the summer, is that it can change with a flash, accompanied by some thunder as well. Wednesday was another hot morning at Blacks Creek, and by the time we made it to the Children's Museum for the afternoon, the air was sticky. That didn't last for long, as suddenly the skies opened up, and fat rain drops poured from the sky. It was almost as if someone had turned a faucet on full blast. In fact, it was raining so hard, that a flash flood warning was issued for the area. It was a mad dash to ensure that all of our property safely made it out of the rain and under the tent. We attempted to continue to show off the animals in our touch tank, including a baby flounder we pulled up in the crab trap! Unfortunately, yet unsurprisingly, not many people were walking whose attention we could grab. However, we ended up bringing our touch tanks inside, at the suggestion of Alyssa, a Childrens Museum employee. We set up right inside, and were able to attract the attention of many families, who were excited to see our animals! All in all, while weather can pose a threat to our activities, there's always something we can do to soldier on.

Until next time, where I should be safe and dry,
Zach

The week is rising!

Alright so Monday to Tuesday, it went from bad to good. Monday my parents warned me about the weather being bad. But I decided that no, I need to have shorts on so I can go in the water. Needless to say I was a little cold when the wind started so harshly blowing along with the pouring rain. Monday was most definitely the most gloomy day, in fact on Monday only two kids came for the whole day. Tuesday was way better, on Tuesday it was still windy but it wasn't raining bad. there were way more kids on Tuesday than Monday, and they were full off energy. But because it was still cold the kids didn't stay for the whole time and we didn't find a lot of crabs, so we really just played gaga ball. but there was one thing that was caught that is bigger than the crabs. We caught a Zebra-striped flip flop!

A rare Zebra-striped flip flop!

After lunch we went to Boston Children's Museum where we all got to work. On my part I mostly just showed children the crab. Honestly Boston Children's Museum was pretty tame,nothing out the ordinary there. 

The Tale of Big Legs the Green Crab

For those not in the know, while I spend my mornings having a great deal of fun over at Black's Creek, I get to spend my afternoons at the Childrens Museum, where I am able to interact with a variety of individuals who find themselves, for one reason or another, passing our stretch of boardwalk in front of the Childrens Museum. I like this shift in focus, as many our visitors come from all different walks of life, and run the gamut in terms of age demographics. As much as I love seeing the wonder in a childs' eye as they hold a green crab for the first time, I also really enjoy every time I can get a parent to say, "Huh, I never knew that!", or to see a group of adults on their lunch break taken aback at the idea that they can hold a crab right here and now. Yes, it's the fullness of different experiences I can have teaching different groups of people about the harbor that helps me enjoy my time at the Childrens Museum.

"This is Big Legs. I named him Big Legs!"

One of my most favorite experiences so far at Childrens was working with a pair of twins, who had visited us earlier during the first week of programming. They liked working with us so much, that they dragged their mother back so they could fish and check out the crabs for a second time. As of the time of this writing, I know they are planning at least one more visit to see us before the summer out. These two boys are naturals, and we joked that they will both end up working for Save the Harbor one day! They did not flinch at the thought of picking up the crabs, and even made a point of taking out each individual crab so that they could give it a name. The names were all creative and unique, some examples being, "Red Dude", "Speedy", "Shelldude", and "Movey". Okay, maybe they weren't the most unique.

Big Legs driving his new car!

 However, the most notable of all the crabs, was the largest one in the touch tank. His name was "Big Legs", appropriately named for the large size of his legs. One of the twins in particular, the one who named him, took a strong liking to Big Legs, and would show him off to every visitor that came by, proudly exclaiming, "This is Big Legs. I named him Big Legs." He and Big Legs were inseparable, though he took great care to make sure Big Legs did not dry out or die. He told me that while it was important to protect all the crabs, he thought Big Legs was the most important. It was funny to watch as he took Big Legs out of the tank, and sat next to him as they both watched his brother play a game with Sam, another Save the Harbor staff. It was eventually an emotional goodbye, but I know it was a connection he will never forget.

I think that this is the take home message of the experience. Through the day, this boy formed a strong connection with a facet of the Boston Harbor. We already know it's one that his entire family values, or they would not have come to visit for a second time, with more planned to follow. When someone forms a connection, they are more likely to want to protect the harbor. Through our work that day, I truly believe I witnessed the birth of one more steward for the Boston Harbor.

Until next time, I'll be walking away with my big legs!
-Zach

Amazing week so far!

   This week has been going pretty well so far, and today was amazing. It started out with the first group of kids for the day, it was rather a small group, so we mostly let the children look for most of the time. Usually the children go into the water to search for crabs and then want to do something different. But today the first group only wanted to look for the sea creatures, so that group was pretty tame. But the second group had more story to it, the second group went to look for crabs for like a good 30 minutes and then we all decided to go to up to the fields to play soccer. But the thunder storm didn't want that. As soon as we heard the thunder we got all the children to go under the pavilion to make sure they didn't get shocked. After that we stayed in the pavilion and played taps(Catch but you have to jump when you catch or throw the ball).

   After lunch we went to the Boston Children's Museum, there we did the usual: catching crabs and showing people said crabs but today we caught something extraordinary. We caught a moon jellyfish! The little thing was lust floating on the water so I held the rope while Sam threw the net. (So I did technically pull up the jellyfish!) After we got the jellyfish it got most of the attention rather than the crabs but in the end both the crabs and the moon jellyfish were put back in the water.

The Moon Jellyfish is very transparent!

Can't wait to have a strong finish!

~Eric

Never a Dull Moment

A participant doing something he has never done before,
hold a shrimp he caught himself!

It's only been a week, but I can already tell that there will never be a dull moment working with Save the Harbor. Whether it be efforts to rescue a bucket that was dropped in the channel outside the Childrens Museum or finding a jellyfish there another day. Whether it be showing off a horseshoe crab to kids who had never seen a live one (Side note: Did you know they have ten eyes scattered around their shell?) or having to make up games under the pavilion at Blacks Creek due to an impending thunderstorm. While I wake up each day having a rough estimate of how my day is going to look, by the time I get home each day, I can look back and realize that something out of the ordinary happened each day.
My favorite question to ask the kids I find myself working with is, "Have you ever done [insert experience here] before?" Quite often, the answer is no. Many children have never caught crabs or hermit crabs, or if they have, never quite at the volume they have at Blacks Creek. One kid in particular stands out to me, with a comment he made outside the Children's Museum. He was watching the line of people with their fishing rods, and exclaimed, "I can't believe fishing is real!" I think his excitement at gaining this new piece of information, that fishing is an activity he can get involved with, speaks wonders for the importance of our programming. We give these children a chance to experience something they may never otherwise get the chance to. Many of the children at Blacks Creek have never been there before, and they are so enamored with the thought that they can just explore for crabs and minnows for an hour. I can't even count the number of kids, and adults, who are trying fishing for the first time. You can't want to protect something unless you know what it is you want to protect. I imagine throughout this summer, we will give many individuals a reason to protect their harbor.

Seize the day!

Zach

First Day, Not My Last

Nieomi taught me how to catch crabs

Look at all the crabs we caught in the trap!

Racing crabs to their home!

       Hey guys I am back and I am better than ever. First day of work went better than I planned! We caught roughly 30-40 crabs and had a lot of kids help us fish as well as pulling up the crab trap. Did you know that green crabs have five sharp edges which spell out the color green? Did you also know that they are not even green? Female crabs have a pyramid shaped belly meanwhile male grabs have a belly shaped like a lighthouse! Most females have an orange/red belly but males can too. I used what I learned in biology class this year to inform kids how the barnacle and the crabs have a commensalistic relationship, where one organism benefits (barnacle) and the other organism is unaffected (crab). Cool right!

Getting hugged by a crab

   I got rid of my fear of crabs and even got pinched and it was not bad I promise. I love the feeling of showing a little kid something they've never seen. I love seeing the crab trap full and the face of all the kids going "woah" it is the coolest thing ever!



~see you next week, Jennifer Rosa
     

Messy Monday at the Museum

This week I'm back at the children's museum and the weather has been very cooperative with us. This week the water wasn't looking so good and we barely caught crabs, but luckily we caught just enough so show the kids. You can identify green Crabs by their five points in the front which ironically spell out "GREEN". But, of course they couldn't believe it when we told them they were caught just out here in the Fort Point Channel. On Mondays the Boston Children's Museum has an event outside called “messy Monday's” not only do they get messy but they are definitely creative and have as you can see in the photo of the left. This is a wooden block with colorful paper that pop up with hearts and so much more. I thought it was very clever to have the kids make their own masterpiece.

-Isabella Perez 

When Crabbing Becomes Fishing

Hi everyone!

At the Boston Children's Museum, we had been experiencing a bit of a fishing drought. On Monday morning, at the beginning of the week, it had been a week and a half since we had caught a fish. The expectation that the next cast would be the lucky one was as high as ever. Eager kids kept stopping by, hoping that they would be the lucky one. We set the crab trap around 10 AM in order to fill up our crab touch tank for visitors. About 30 minutes later, I walked over to see if we had caught anything. While there was one or two crabs, there was also a fish! While our intentions with the trap were not to catch fish, we were thrilled to have caught the first one in a week and a half! After a scan through our Atlantic Coast guide book, we still could not figure out what the little guy was. Many passerby's offered their opinion, but we could not seem to come to an answer. After a a quick message to our boss, he informed us that it was probably a croggie.

   

We kept our little friend in our touch tank throughout the morning (although there was no actual touching, the fish had a spiky spine!). Kids were thrilled to see not only our crabs, but also our fish, and most couldn't believe that we had caught him right here in the Fort Point Channel.

Until next time!
Jessie G.

We Caught a Hook and a Weight!

The title is completely serious. At Boston Children's Museum, we have to cut the lines more often than we'd like because the hooks get caught on rocks. Sometimes we are able to save the weight, and sometimes we just had to grumble and put on another weight. Earlier this week, we had to cut several lines over the course of a few days because it kept getting caught on the same rock.
One boy who was fishing managed to reel one of the cut lines in.
All of us were speechless. It took me a few seconds to realize exactly what was happening as he was reeling his line in. I'm still a little mind boggled over all of that. The chance that his hook would fall in such a way that it would scoop up the cut line is incredibly slim, and yet it happened. It's amazing that it even happened, and I'm so glad I got to witness such a bizarre event.

This Saturday I worked the Kid's Day Concert. Like the Revere Beach Sandcastle Festival, fish printing was the main event. Except we didn't start it until an hour in. Why? Because we were acting as the pirate crew for our storyteller Nora! Nora came dressed as Mary Read, told stories, and gave out prizes to the kids. The kids loved both the fish printing and pirate stories, and it gave us a chance to tell people about the Save the Harbor Save the Bay marble hunt. Overall, I'd say it was a successful end to the week and weekend with a lot of fun and enjoyable moments.

Kharliyah and her rope catch

The Weirdest Catch of the Summer

Sand Art

More Fish Printing!

Witness Me!

Sarah M.

what was it?

Not too long ago a young boy was fishing in hope to catch something big and stunning. He wanted to catch something no man would ever forget. He want to catch a shark! He pulled up the reel, put it down and pulled it back up then threw it in. He gave up and sat down for a bit, but he never gave up on what he was striving for. As soon as he came back and pulled up the reel there was something all right! We thought it was just a piece of trash from afar then we took a closer look and it only looked more of a sack of eggs than what we originally thought it was. We got a magnifying glass and saw that there was some type of organism inside for sure. As we were looking at it and saw sienna floating around we pretty must thought it was either shrimp, mosquitos or even fish. We knew it had to be something! It was slimy and just not the best thing to hold. I hope one day we find out what it really is. The young boy although determined to catch a massive sea creature, he did not. Whomp, whomp!

- Isabella Perez-alvarez

Method Man

Hey guys its Jahari here again with a new blog! So this week hasn't been as exciting as last week but there is one new cool thing that I have learned about myself. I noticed that I have been getting more comfortable with the people that want to learn how to fish or look at the crabs that we catch. So whenever a kid comes by and wants to fish, I try to make them as comfortable as possible by making them laugh or making them feel good about how they are fishing. So I crack a few jokes here and there from time to time because once you make a kid laugh they get less shy and want to keep trying. And whenever they are fishing I would give them a compliment or clap for them when they cast out the line because then after that they start to feel good about their fishing and this also makes them want to fish more. These methods work because I have literally seen three kids come back just to fish which they have never done before. I know I will come up with new methods later on but for now I am pretty solid at this. I love seeing the smile on the kids face when they feel good about themselves!

Mason's Catch

Hi everyone!

Here at Save the Harbor Save the Bay we have been working with a very talented storyteller to improve our storytelling skills, and in hearing other people’s stories about their experiences with the harbor. So, I am going to tell you a story of how my friend Mason now has a story about the harbor to tell for himself.

It was a beautiful, sunny Wednesday afternoon at the Boston Children’s Museum. Opposite of the channel sat part of the city skyline and the Boston Tea Party Museum. A lady had rowed by on her rowboat a few times, and the cool breeze worked with the mildly hot sun to keep us at a very comfortable state.

Until then, the week had been slow as far as our fishing game was concerned. We had only pulled in a few crabs on our fishing lines. Our crew was beginning to pack up our supplies for our lunch break, when Mason and his family approached us and our fishing rods. Like any other kid that comes by, we taught him how to drop cast, and to sit, wait, and hope for the best. However, Mason did not need to wait as long as most of us before he felt a tug on the end of his line. Less than a minute had passed by when Mason realized he had something, and when he went to reel it in, he found a little fish waiting to say “Hi.”

Mason and Luke showing off Mason's catch!

This was Mason’s first fish that he caught, and now he can tell the story of how that happened right here in the Boston Harbor.

Until next time!

Jessie G.