Mason+D's+Giant+Squid+Project

Giant Squids!!!!! By:Mason Dooley

Materials 5. Two packages of pom-poms 6. Cotton balls 7. A black sharpie 8. Hot glue gun 9. Cookie scooper 10.Medium piece of styrofoam.
 * 1) A 2lb. of brown, orange, white, and tan model magic
 * 2) One package of pink pipe cleaners (about 12)
 * 3) A white poster board
 * 4) Blue foil


 * 1) Gather your supplies.
 * 2) Get the cone-shaped styrofoam and cover all but the bottom with tan Model Magic. Remember to make two humps about 1 in. high on both sides at the top of the styrofoam and a point at the top.
 * 3) Get your smoothfoam sphere and cover half of that with tan Model Magic.
 * 4) Get the cookie scooper and scoop a hole in the bottom of the cone big enough to fit a little bit of the sphere in.
 * 5) Hot glue the sphere into the hole. Do not glue the part that has the model magic in it.
 * 6) Put Model Magic connecting the cone and sphere together. There should be a little slot in-between the sphere and cone. Not separating them, just a slot at the edge of them. Make sure to press the Model Magic in to the slot.
 * 7) Get the cotton balls and cut them in half.
 * 8) Put a big black dot in the middle of it.
 * 9) Glue it on the cotton ball about half way up and you should be able to draw a straight line to half of cotton ball to half of cotton ball (these are its eyes.)
 * 10) Glue the pom-poms to 8 of the pipe cleaners. Leave a space on the pipe cleans with no pom-poms.
 * 11) Wrap two pipe cleaners together to make a big pipe cleaner. Do this two times.
 * 12) Glue pom-poms to those too.
 * 13) Make a round model ball to the bottom of the sphere. Stick the pipe cleaners in it. Make a round shape with them and point the pom-poms toward the middle.
 * 14) Make a fish.
 * 15) Wrap the poster board with blue foil and secure it with packing tape.
 * 16) Cover styrofoam piece with blue foil.
 * 17) Mount squid on the styrofoam.
 * 18) Put fish on the opposite side that the giant squid is on.

The Giant Squid

Not many people know about the giant squid. That is good, because you are about to absorb some interesting facts about this amazing creature. This creatures is not only Incredible and magnificent; it is also mysterious. Scientists do not even know that much about them! So, prepare yourself because you are going to learn what they eat, where they live, and how they catch and eat their prey. Sit back and enjoy this wonderful information.

We get served dinner by our parents, but the giant squid, a member of the mollusc family, has to catch its own food. It enjoys eating shrimp, smaller fish, and squids (which is kind of weird because the squid and the giant squid are “cousins”!) It also eats larger sea animals. They first spot their prey with their huge eyes—that can be as big as volleyballs—and start approaching it. When it gets close, its tentacles shoot out like a missile and snatch its prey with its two longest arms. Giant squid gripping, it reels in its prey with the help of its suckers with sharp barbs called teeth in them and its eight arms to capture its dinner. It then puts it in its mouth and cuts up the food with a hard beak (like a parrot’s beak) and swallows it! Yum!

We live in our warm and cozy homes, but the giant squid lives in the dark and cold ocean about 650 meters below sea level. That was the distance of the first giant squid found below sea level that was not washed up on shore. Scientists do not know exactly where they live, but they have been found in the coastal waters around Europe and Canada and in Monterey. They have been trying to figure out ways to go down that deep in the ocean to observe the giant squids in its natural habitat. One of the ways they thought of was going down in a mini submarine called a submersible. The only problem with that though is that the light and the noise might scare off the giant squid.

One cool fact (not counting all of the information above) is that the giant squid is not on the top of the food chain! The sperm whale eats them, but has to go through a torturous battle to do so. The giant squid fights back by squeezing the sperm whale with its tentacles. Sometimes the giant squids wins, but sadly the sperm whale usually wins the fight and eats the giant squid. Scientists have found sperm whales with giant squid sucker prints on their skin. At least the giant squid puts up a fight!



http://library.thinkquest.org/6006/squid.htm# http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/squid_highlights.html __Down, Down, Down__