Coral Reef Fish Math!

A Giant triggerfish and school of goldies photographed by Hein Waschefort

Last time I blogged, I had just published my very first EVER Marine Biology curriculum unit, Marine Fish of the World with Coral Reef Fish. I'm super duper excited about this unit not only because of it's colorlicious photography (thanks to SO many amazing photographers offering their work to Creative Commons so long as we attribute their name to the photos) and cool vintage black and white graphics in the public domain, but, because my research on the colors and patterns of coral reef fish, more specifically triggerfish, was very satisfying. Teachers love learning too. I have so much fun digging deeper into topics that textbooks never have time for. Why wouldn't it be a priority for students to derive mathematical connections from some of the most colorful creatures on the planet, coral reef fish? 

Let's have a look at some of the fun colors and patterns of coral reef fish along with a few snapshots from my marine fish unit.

Hands down, my most favorite coral reef fish, and fish in the world.....and likely unarguably the most colorful fish in the sea........................

A mandarinfish from the Munich Zoo, Hellabrunn photographed by Jenni Douglas

Tadaa! The mandarinfish! This week I taught my first Marine Biology summer eWorkshop lesson on JUST the mandarinfish. I'm sorry that the class is not up anymore, but once we CurrClick teachers start a course, the enrollment comes down. BUT, check out my cool mandarinfish resource page here. 

How about that, now! An entire 1-hour eClass JUST on the mandarinfish! The students loved it! Just take a moment to look at and admire all the wonderful colors and patterns you see on this graceful fish. Check out a video of it from the mandarinfish resource page (scroll down to the videos) to see just how graceful and lovely they really are! 

I see a remarkable cobalt blue, which is unique to this fish since it's produced by it's nude skin's cellular pigment. Yes, it's a nude, scale-less fish in the Dragonet family composed of over 180 other species! I CAN'T WAIT to dig deeper and research the other colorful family members. The video from my page entitled, "Mucky Secrets - Part 9 - Mandarinfish & other Dragonets Lembeh Strait" (scroll down to the first video beneath the Informative Videos heading), shows a few of the other Dragonet members including the mandarinfish. Notice the waved lines that look like a child's marker drawing. How about the converging lines on the fins, lovely yellow spots and concentric purple and red rings around its eye! All of these patterns I described, are studied in higher maths. Why not bring more beauty into the mathematics curriculum both for young and old?

And now for our finale........the triggerfish!

Clockwise top to bottom: Unicorn Leatherjacket Filefish, White-Banded Triggerfish, Queen Triggerfish, Rough Triggerfish, Black Triggerfish. Image in the public domain.

It's a vintage image, one of my favorites. The artist really captured the unique ovoid body shapes. 

The Orange-lined triggerfish photographed by janderk and released into the public domain.

Just look at and admire those outstanding orange stripes! Below you'll see parts of the marine fish unit with the exercises for observing colors, patterns, numbers and shapes in the triggerfish.

Students study the diagram above and use the fish's external anatomy in their mathematical descriptions in the exercises below.

A slide from lesson two, Introduction to the Coral Reef Fish PowerPoint

And yes it does have a red tooth!

You can check out the rest of the preview of the Marine Fish of the World and Coral Reef Fish from my Teachers Pay Teachers store! Just click on Preview beneath the unit's cover image.