Fishes don’t quite appeal to me. I’m the kind who would rather visit the zoo one more time than explore a new aquarium. So, I wasn’t expecting to get anything out of this book.

The Magic School Bus crew visit the Great Barrier Reefs this time round. There, they learn authentic examples of mutualism. Given that mutualism was an area covered in a recent PSLE Science paper (https://diaperfinancingfund.blogspot.com/2024/11/psle-science-question-on-mutualism.html?m=1), I felt my interest accelerate. Learnt stuff about how crabs protect starfish by clipping their thorns off to protect the coral reef. The coral, in turn, provides the crabs with a home. Another cool example was how large fishes like groupers, moray eels and even sharks swim to cleaning stations manned by cleanerfsh. These small, striped fish will nibble on the side of their larger counterparts and even pick clean the inside of their mouths. Apparently, the parasites and debris plaguing the larger fish are food for the cleanerfish.

Goes to show how one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

There was an explanation of how fish breathe underwater. This made me feel that I didn’t do a good job as a Science teacher at the primary school. If I were to teach third-graders Science again, I would try to bring in a replica of a fish and show them how it breathes underwater through its gills. Hence, by the time they advance to Primary 5, they would be able to articulate that fish take in dissolved oxygen from water through their gills BUT humans take in oxygen from the air through their lungs. I still remember an exercise in which all but my weakest P5 student couldn’t explain this difference properly!