We're Seeing Stars! - Sea Star dissection at the library (December 2011)

Sea star dissection - AnnaGrace

We went to a sea star dissection at the Florida Aquarium. We learned a lot about the sea star. For instance, it can grow back, or regenerate a lost arm. To eat, they have to basically barf up one of their stomachs (they have two!) and push it in to the shell of the animal they are trying to eat. Another fact before we move on to the juicy stuff is that they don't have blood. They have an orange dot on them called a sieve plate that they use to take in water to circulate throughout their body to function. When we actually cut into our sea star, along its arms, we saw gooey stuff that was its digestive system. Then we got to the good stuff in the middle, it was green, I know what you are thinking, no, it is NOT poop. Well, maybe it was poop, because we were looking at the stomachs and actually found a little shell. Our instructor said she had never seen a sea star with stuff still in its stomach.  Because the shell was being digested, it was very delicate and broke very easily.

Sea Star Dissection - Jack

We went to the Florida Aquarium for a home schoolers’ class to dissect a sea star, it was so cool. We took one of my best friends Cullen. We had so much fun and learned many interesting facts about the sea star. For instance, they don't have blood, but they circulate water through their body to function.  Also sea stars are not fish so they shouldn’t be called “star fish” but they do look like stars and live in the sea, so they are actually, officially called sea stars.  Sea stars are in the same family as the sand dollar, sea biscuit, sea urchin, sea Lilly and sea cucumber, called Echinoderms. Sea stars also have two stomachs, a cardiac stomach and a pyloric stomach. The Cardiac stomach pumps water and nutrients through the body (like a heart – cardiac) the pyloric stomach digests its prey by coming out of its body to engulf its meal.  Sea stars eat clams scallops crabs and other crustaceans and the living creatures in coral. This was a really cool experience, Cullen and I made a video that that we will try to post.