Eleanor Studies Ocean Plants by Eleanor

Hello, this is Eleanor Pallister again, in a new year. I am quite excited to be seeing you again. Right now, we are talking about the sea, and plants under there, and other great things in the water. 

Have you ever heard of algae? (Pronounced AL-gee.) Have you ever heard of baleen? Have you ever heard of krill? I can tell you all about them. But why don't you watch this video up here to give you a start?

Now that you've watched the video, you may have heard me talk about phytoplankton. Phytoplankton, means "plant drifter" Phytoplankton produce a large amount of oxygen, for creatures in the ocean AND creatures on land. But it's not like you could just walk up to some ocean water, scoop it up, take a whiff, and have unlimited amounts of air forever. The phytoplankton would eventually die.

Plankton are quite, quite tiny, and you can only see them with a very fine microscope. If you do have a very fine microscope on hand, take a dropper, drop some of the ocean water on to a the top of a microscope slide and then take a look. You will probably be able to see very small sort of creature thing eating each other. it's very interesting.

Now away from plankton. Let's talk about baleen. (Pronounced BAY-leen.) Now, first of before we get into what baleen is, whales don't have teeth, instead they have baleen, which is sort of like a strainer - you know, how when you strain macaroni? Baleen acts like a strainer for whales, they use baleen like teeth, they don't chomp down, like us, instead they strain the ocean water with their baleen and get tiny animals like krill, and things.

Now, time for krill. Krill are these little tiny animals which are very important to sea life. Without krill, a  lot of the food web would not be there, like whales and fish and many other things which I will not mention because there are too many. Krill are very tiny, I'm not quite of the size, but make an estimate in your head.

And now you know three things about tiny ocean life (except for the big whale part). Now you have a start off all about plants in the ocean. Please watch Bill Nye the Science Guy's video "Ocean Life" or visit your local aquarium to find out more. Thank you, I'll be here all week!

Touching sea cucumbers and starfish at the Aquarium

Helping animals