Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2017 i Click Science and Discovery Magazine for Preschoolers and Young Children

People sometimes say we know less about the deep sea on our own planet than we do about outer space. Scientists are trying to change that. Last April, they explored the Mariana Trench, one of the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean. They spotted this weird and wonderful jellyfish more than 12,000 feet down. The scientists didn’t actually travel that deep. They did their looking through cameras mounted on a little submarine called Deep Discoverer.…

As much as she can, Sylvia Earle lives underwater. In the 7,000 hours she’s spent under the sea, the scientist and explorer has heard humpback whales sing, become friends with fish, walked along the deep ocean floor, and discovered plants and animals no human had ever seen before. Growing up, Sylvia loved to explore the woods, fields, and creeks near her family’s farm in New Jersey. She took notes and drew pictures of tadpoles, insects, and plants. And she watched carefully, like a scientist. When Sylvia was 12, her family moved to Florida. Now, the warm, salty Gulf of Mexico was her backyard. For her birthday, Sylvia’s parents gave her a pair of goggles she could use to see underwater. There was so much life there! Even more than in…

Well, what makes fish such good swimmers? For starters, they can breathe underwater. You have to come up for air. I know. I breathe air in through my nose and mouth, and it fills the lungs inside my chest. When I take a big breath, I can feel my chest rise. Exactly! Then your lungs take the part of the air that you need, the oxygen, and you breathe out the rest. What about fish? You saw how the fish kept opening its mouth. It was letting water in. Was it thirsty? No, the water flows over gills inside the fish’s body. There’s oxygen in water. Oh, I get it. The gills take the oxygen the fish needs, like my lungs do for me. But I breathe out the air…

Project NEEMO (short for NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations) turns astronauts into aquanauts. The underwater missions last two or three weeks and are great practice for going to outer space. The aquanaut crew must live and work together in a small space—just like on a space mission. But their home is the Aquarius undersea research lab, not a spacecraft. The aquanauts don’t need a rocket to reach Aquarius; they can swim down. But it’s not so easy when it’s time to return to land. When you’re as deep as the Aquarius, the water above you presses down—hard! Your body adjusts to the greater pressure, but you need to spend a long time (more than 15 hours) decompressing before you can return to the surface. The bedroom on Aquarius holds six…

Far, far out to sea, land is only a memory, and empty sky touches the water. Just beneath the surface is a tangle of weed and driftwood where tiny creatures cling. This is the nursery of a sea turtle. Passing in a boat, you might not notice the turtle. Not much bigger than a bottle top, she hides in the green shadows and snaps her beak on tiny crabs and shrimps. She’s a baby, so her shell is soft as old leather. Just a little fish bite could rip it open. But the turtle is safe in her world of weed. The turtle swims around, flapping her long front flippers like wings. She is flying underwater. She pokes her pinprick nostrils through the silver surface to take a quick breath—so…

The goal of this card game is to collect sets of ocean animals. Cut out all 36 cards along the dashed black lines. Mix them up and deal five cards to each player. Place the remaining cards facedown in a pile between the players. The first player asks one other player if he or she has a card from a certain set of animals. For example, Perry asks, “Kate, do you have any sharks?” The asking player (Perry) must already have at least one card from that set. If Kate has any shark cards, she gives them all to Perry, who then gets another turn to ask one player (it can be Kate again or a different player) for an animal. If Kate does not have any shark cards, she…

A coral reef might look like a beautiful underwater garden, where colorful fish swim and hide among flowers, rocks, and leaves. But those aren’t plants and stones. They’re animals! Corals can be all sorts of shapes—thick fingers, lacy plumes, wrinkly brains, bumpy plates. What looks like one coral is really zillions of tiny animals called polyps. A polyp’s skeleton isn’t inside its body like yours. It’s outside and can be hard or soft. The polyps live so close together that their skeletons connect. Can you find? spotted moray eel banded butterflyfish queen parrotfish spotted eagle ray squirrelfish sea anemone tube sponge vase sponge sea star rock-boring sea urchin spiny lobster longsnout seahorse pillar coral sea fan coral What other animals do you see?…