Research and Evaluation
Teaching Functional Morphology of Cephalopods During Summer Course
Abstract
The need for marine education has increased in Japan, and recently, many marine education programs have emerged. Fishes are very popular with children; however, children are not familiar with cephalopods. There is little opportunity for children to observe marine life from the perspective of functional morphology; hence, we offered a lecture about the functional morphology of cephalopods. The lecture incorporated a presentation and the opportunity to observe body forms. During the observation, we used suckers and arms of squid and octopus. Squid and octopus have tentacles with different types of suckers. The morphology of the suckers is related to their function and ecology. The questionnaire we administered to evaluate the lecture revealed that it was varied for both children and parents, and helped them to understand the morphology of cephalopods.