Power+of+Predators+Science+Cafe

On February 2nd 2018, I went to the daily planet cafe for the teen science cafe for a lecture from Enie Hensel who is a PhD candidate from NC State and researched in coral reefs in the Bahamas. She discussed marine ecosystems and the effects predators can have on preys behavior such as prey grouping up in schools of fish to defend themselves and the parrotfish, which defends itself by hiding its smell with a mucous cocoon. We also learned about terms such as an apex predator, trophic levels, and trophic cascades. After the lecture, she organized an activity with the entire science cafe. In this activity, she picked 3 kids to be sharks and the rest of the people to be groupers. Me and two other people were one grouper and we were supposed to pick up as many of our prey fish as we could within one minute. We did it three times, the first time with no sharks, and the next two times with sharks. The sharks could tap you on the shoulder and eat you. This science cafe relates to environmental science because it has to do with predator and prey, trophic levels, and ecosystems which we have learned about in class.

This is me holding up the fish I had eaten that round