Students ‘Dive In With C.A.N.’

Julia Conant, Arts & Entertainment Editor

 

Dive In With C.A.N., the aquatic themed welcome week event was ironically rained out and relocated to Semesters. But that didn’t stop students from coming out and having a good time.

As soon as students signed in to the event, they were offered a C.A.N. promotional item such as a notebook or a charger. If you came to the event early enough, you could get a pet fish. Little tanks with water, rocks and fake plants were provided.

Facts about ocean life, fish, sharks, and beach pollution were posted all around the event to both raise awareness of issues occurring in the oceans and to spread simple fun facts. An example of a fun fact is that “Sharks need to keep moving in order to breathe,” while a serious fact was, “600,00o barrels of oil a year are accidentally spilled from ships.”

Dip and crackers were available for students to eat, as well as beach themed desserts. Little cups were filled with crushed graham crackers meant to look like sand, a blue pudding-like substance meant to look like water, with gummy worms and gummy fish. For a drink, students could either have water or blue lemonade.

At the front of the room, three tanks with sea creatures were set up for students to touch. A representative from Mystic Aquarium monitored the tanks and answered any questions about the creatures. Students could touch a horseshoe crab, green crab, spider crab, hermit crab, purple sea urchin and more.

Various parts of sea creatures were laid out on the table next to the touch tanks. These included shark teeth, lobster claws, seal fur and a tiger shark jaw.

Overall, C.A.N.’s goal was to inform students about sea life and raise awareness about issues concerning the ocean.