A Real Myth Buster - Jillian Morris
My class is on a mission to connect with 50 scientists, explorers and conservationists from around the world through Skype. Here is our class blog from speaker #6 Jillian Morris (Marine Biologist, founder of Sharks4Kids)
Sharks!!! One of Mr. G's favourite animals by far...but for many members of our class, the exact opposite. I've been lucky enough to dive with many different types of sharks and have tried to convince our class that their fearsome reputation is undeserved. So today I brought in a professional to set the record straight.
Jillian Morris connected with us this morning from the island of Bimini in the Bahamas. Jillian is a free diver, scuba instructor, photographer, educator, outreach coordinator, rebreather diver, videographer, writer, underwater model, marine biologist and and ocean advocate. Her film work has been featured on the Discovery Channel and National Geographic to name a few.
We were lucky to have a beautifully clear connection today, Jillian had mentioned in an earlier email that the internet connection can be a bit challenging where she is. She began today by introducing herself and showing us some of the tools of her trade, from her small Go Pro camera to the 80 pound housing that protects her expensive video cameras. After that she got into shark conservation. Over the next 20 minutes she had the class riveted to the smartboard screen, hanging off her every word. She was a great speaker and had a wealth of tremendous information.
Jillian split her time between dispelling many myths that sharks are a serious threat to us and explaining why it is so important that we make a concentrated effort to conserve them. Education is the best tool in the fight to save sharks and Jillian's videos and pictures are powerful tools.
A small taste of what we learned:
- in tests, sharks don't really react to human blood in the water, but become quite excited for fish blood.
- most shark attacks are a case of mistaking identity. If you're looking up in murky water, the outline of a surfer looks an awful lot like the outline of a seal or sea turtle.
- if you've swam in the ocean, odds are you've swam with a shark. If they were as dangerous as they are made out to be, attacks would happen a lot more often.
- humans kill over 100 million sharks each year, a lot of them for their fins. The shark fin soup that they are used to make is actually toxic. Sharks are apex predators, top of their food chain. The more sea life that they consume, the more mercury bioaccumulates in their systems. When people consume the soup, they get a large dose of toxic mercury.
- sharks have small pits all over the front of their snouts called ampullae of lorenzini. These are sensors that sharks can use to detect the weak electrical impulses given off by fish. This is also why sharks bit camera gear on occasion. They can detect the weak electrical impulses from the video camera and test to see if they are food.
Jillian was a great visitor to have in our classroom. She spent another 20 minutes answering some excellent questions from students. She patiently dispelled some fears that students had about sharks attacking divers and going after swimmers with cuts on their bodies. After the lesson, Jillian sent me an amazing video of Hammerhead sharks in Bimini...I'm going to have to go check that out!!
All in all, another great Skype experience. We've had some amazing ocean lessons in October and November promises to yield many more. Thank you Jillian!!!
Update: We has such a great time with Jillian that we decided to work with her shark conservation group, Sharks4Kids, to bring them to Canada for a week in June to speak with thousands of students within our school board. Check out our campaign page here:
