3rd Class Fieldtrip to

On Friday 13th October our class went on a fieldtrip to Rathmoylan Cove. Rathmoylan Cove is a small inlet near Dunmore East, County Waterford, Ireland. For the fieldtrip our class had to bring spades, buckets, nets, wellies and our lunches. We left our school at 10 o'clock and travelled by bus to Rathmoylan Cove. When we arrived we were allowed to play on the beach and have something to eat.

Afterwards we answered a questionnaire. We learnt that the coming and going of the sea is called the tide. The moon and the sun make the sea do this every 6 hours. There are 2 high tides and 2 low tides in a day. The high and low water marks on the beach were 140m apart. There is saltwater in the sea and freshwater in the nearby stream. We learnt that the top of a wave is called a "crest", and the hollow between waves is called a "trough". On a breezy day the white breaking wave crests are called "white horses".

Then our class separated into two groups and we each explored different parts of the cove with our teachers.

We investigated the rock pools around the cove. We found limpets and barnacles. We sketched then. A barnacle is smaller than a limpet and it has a cap that opens when the tide comes in to so it can feed. We found some periwinkles and looked at the little fish that live inside the shells. The sea anemones were wine coloured and felt like jelly. If you touched them they closed up their tentacles. We also found two crabs, shrimps, whelks and seaweeds in the rock pools. Robbie caught a shrimp in his net but he let it go again.

Along the seashore we found different seaweeds. We found sea lettuce, bladder wrack and tangle oar. We drew pictures of them.

Everyone loved digging for lugworms. We searched for the little spirals in the sand and when we spotted them we started digging as quickly as we could. The lugworms tried to get away by wriggling deeper into the sand. Eight people found lugworms.

Afterwards we looked for shells on the beach. We found some limpet shells, mussels, whelks and periwinkles shells. We think the September storms covered or washed away lots of shells. We also found a dead crab.

We had our lunch break and then we surveyed the beach for pollution.

We found the following:

After we completed our pollution survey it was time to gather up our own gear and climb aboard the bus to take us back to school. We were all tired and some of us were wet too. We had a great day. We learned a lot and we all want to go back and explore the cove again.

Ms. Glynn's Third Class,
St. Mary's National School,
Ballygunner,
Waterford.