On Saturday I got to go along on a Discover Oman field trip with the 4th grade classes to visit the mangrove habitat/sanctuary near our house.
The mangrove project starts when they collect the seeds and plant them in their nursery in July/August. It takes 6 months for the mangrove tree to grow into a seedling big enough to be transplanted. This grove of trees is protected by fencing or the camels and goats will come and eat them. The project has been ongoing for the past 10 years — the first transplants recently reached maturity.
It turns out that mangroves are great for the ecosystem. In addition to cleaning the air, they maintain the soil along the coastline by preventing erosion, and most importantly, act as a nursery for small fish and other marine life. I’m sure I could have learned more about mangroves, but I got sidetracked by the mermaid calling to me in the background and wondering if I could sneak off and grab a cappuccino without anyone noticing.
The mangrove roots growing back up out of the ground. I have no idea why they do this. Correction: I had no idea why they did this until I looked it up on google just now. It turns out that these special roots breathe air. Ocean mud doesn’t contain much oxygen, so they stick their little roots in the air and breathe away. More nifty mangrove info can be found here.
Some of the mature trees that were planted when the project first started. The kids had binoculars and were spotting birds and huge crabs.
This is the nursery where the baby trees are grown. It’s watered by the tides twice a day, just like the adult trees.
That’s why you can find baby sea snails hanging out on the mangrove leaves inside the nursery.
Each of the kids got to take and plant their own tree.
Planting is done at low tide — in a few hours these trees will be covered by water.
Carter found a tiny crab while he was digging a hole for his tree.
Once the tree planting was finished we all went across the street to the beach to eat lunch. Carter found a huge (live) starfish in the water. He has the sharpest eyes. When he was a toddler he was always spotting tiny specks of airplanes way up in the sky — he’d shout out “pain! pain” and we’d have to hunt and squint until finally we could see the minuscule spot of a plane cruising at 30 thousand feet. It comes in handy daily when I have to ask for his help finding my keys, finding his brother’s shoes, finding my shoes . . .
As if the field trip weren’t cool enough already, it turned out that the Tour de Oman (yes, like the French one) was scheduled to ride right past where we were picnicking. The police closed down the road and we all gathered on the sidewalk to cheer on the riders.
We got a great view of everyone because the race started right down the road in front of the Opera House so they were all still riding in formation behind the lead cars when they passed our spot. Josh said they ride together for the first K of the race so they don’t all pile up in a crash right at the start.
Then it was time to go back to the beach where Carter and his friends built a dam to wall in one of the huge tidepools. This was a way better field trip than the ones we used to take from Laurel to Chabot Science Center . . .