Puffins

A few weeks ago (okay, over a month ago) the boys & I spent a whole day out and about at various field trips. It was a long day but full of fun. Our first stop was elephants...in Maine no less! Then we took a short ocean break to walk near a lighthouse and beach comb.

We left the beach to head to our next stop. I was reminded once again to never fully trust my GPS. It kept having us turn down Main Street before we should have so we ended up being about 20 minutes late to the next stop: The Puffin Project Visitor Center in Rockland.

A few years ago we were able to go on a cruise off the coast to see live puffins. The boys still remember that fun boat ride.

The Puffin Center is an outreach area that helps teach not only about puffins but also other seabirds. They use a lot of hands-on learning and made it so fun for all the kids.

They talked about how a puffin is designed to live in its environment. At the very end the instructor had one of the kids come up and dressed them to survive the environment. It was hilarious and made a lasting impression on the kids.

They kids then split up in to groups and each were given a container filled with various sizes of beads as well as different implements to pick them up. Their goal was to pick up some very small gold beads. They could pick which implement they used and then counted to see how many they were able to pick up. The implements were meant to simulate different bird beaks and how they work. The kids loved this part of it as well.

Once again, the above activity is meant to show how puffins (and other marine animals) survive the cold water. Each bowl had ice water in it. One bag had Crisco in it and one had nothing. They were designed to be worn like mittens. It helped the kids see that the extra layer of fat helps to insulate the body to stay warm.

This was a really fun field trip and one we would highly recommend to others.

But it wasn't the last stop of our day......(to be continued....)