Coral Sundaes

Today, we spent most of our class time learning about coral biology, reproduction, and reef ecosystems. To apply all that we had learned today, we made coral sundaes. So, we were given a small tub of ice cream and a variety of toppings. Our goal for our sundae was to include as many of the following components: disease, a mucus layer, an exoskeleton, zooxanthellae, internal bioerosion, external bioerosion, predation, biofilm, and mortality. Below is the sundae that my pattern and I made. It looked better as we made it but by the time they got around to taking a picture, it had melted some. We included all the components minus the biofilm; however, biofilm could be displayed by the carmel along with the mucus layer. The chocolate represented black band disease and an internal bioerosion and the area with no toppings is the mortality (these are hard to see in the angle of this picture). The red licorice is the exoskeleton, sprinkles are external bioerosion, and green sugar is the zooxanthellae (single-celled protozoans that are able to live in symbiosis with corals). To top it off we displayed a fish for predation. This was a fun activity incorporating all that we have learned today in class. After the instructors judged us, we got to eat our sundae creations. My pattern and I placed third.