Reader Recommendations: Aquariums

One day at the beach in Costa Rica my daughter and I were digging in the sand making sandcastles when we ran across a live sand dollar. Finding a dead exoskeleton would have been exciting but finding a live sand dollar was unbelievable! We held it in our hands and felt the tiny hairs on the underside of it's body tickle our skin ans the animal tried to get away from us and wiggle it's way back down into the sand. We turned it over and watched it's mouth moving in the center of it's flat body.We set it down in the sand and watched it filter sand and water through it's body and out the five holes that radiate out from the center. Then we started to feel just under the surface of the sand as the tide washes the waves back and forth and began to find more sand dollars. At first we found one or two. Then we found them by the tens. We soon realized that there were hundreds, thousands and possibly millions of sand dollars right there on that beach. Talk about a teaching moment! We spent the rest of the day observing, drawing, measuring and counting sand dollars. This lens is about the math that can be learned at the beach while observing sand dollarsl

Great educational and informational website for freshwater aquarium hobbyists. Specifically geared towards freshwater invertebrates including shrimp, crayfish, snails, and more. Great website and safe for kids of all ages. There is also a forum if you wish to ask questions or read more from other hobbyists.

Huge educational hobbyist site promoting responsible tropical fish keeping internationally since 1997. Over 2000 pages of photos and information, plus a discussion forum with thousands of members.

This site is wonderful. Each time I visit, I am surprised by a different homepage movie, which depicts exhibits throughout the Aquarium and some of the animals you find there. The site offers great children's activities that get kids excited about marine life and conservation issues. Best of all, it's easy to navigate and very user friendly for parents and children.

If you're looking for a full information site on fish and aquariums, tetra-fish.com is the place. The site provides several links to fish and aquarium related pages. Aquademics is full of information, resources and reproducible worksheets for teachers and parents. There are links to state aquariums across the country. Instruction on planning and implementing a home or classroom aquarium is included. The most exciting link on this site is the Virtual Aquarium. The Virtual Aquarium allows you to plan your aquarium from tank to fish and then creates it on screen as a print or as a 3-D screen with your fish swimming and plants wiggling.