BIDDEFORD — Like many teachers, Emily Valentino of St. James School believes in opening the eyes of her students to new concepts and new ideas and giving them an opportunity to better understand the world around them.

This school year, Valentino, a science teacher at the Catholic elementary school in Biddeford, has accomplished that mission and so much more through the use of a “Touch Tank,” a 100-gallon saltwater tank filled with 35 species of marine animals and vegetation. Students help maintain the tank daily, feed the sea creatures in it and care for them all while learning about the microcosm of species that make up an ocean tidal pool.

Last October, Valentino teamed up with Carol Steingart of Coast Encounters to populate the “Touch Tank” with marine life found on a weekend excursion to Middle Beach in Kennebunk.

“We brought back a variety of barnacles, snails, crabs, sea stars, mussels, sea anemones, dog whelks, sea urchins, lobsters, and common periwinkles, along with assorted sea lettuce, Irish moss, sea grasses and dulse,” Valentino said.

Using a license to keep the marine life for educational purposes, Valentino will return the creatures to the sea at the end of the school year, but in the meantime, the tank has been a source of amazement and inspiration for St. James students.

Max Forcier, 13, a seventh-grader, said this year’s “Touch Tank” has given him a new perspective about science.

“The tank has always been here, but never had many animals in it,” Forcier said. “What’s been done with it this year though has sparked something in me and made me want to learn more about these animals.”

Matt Gonneville, 13, a seventh-grader, said he’s always been interested in science in school, but helping maintain the tank this year has increased what he feels about the subject.

“I’ve always loved marine biology, but never more than now,” Gonneville said. “I’ve learned that there’s a lot of cleanup involved with maintaining the tank and it’s not always easy to keep the water at the correct salt levels.”

On Thursday, Steingart spent much of the morning working with students from all grade levels at St. James, teaching them about some of the species in the tank. Students were able to touch and ask questions about select marine creatures from the tank and discovered why it’s important to remove trash and litter from the beach so it doesn’t harm the tiny inhabitants living in the nearby tidal pools.

She showed students how to hold a lobster, what sea vegetation is used as an ingredient in ice cream and environmental stressors for some sea creatures and skills they use to survive.

Steingart said she enjoyed meeting the students and wants them to take away something from the “Touch Tank” experience.

“I want them to be good stewards of the sea and all the creatures therein,” she said. “They are the next generation of caretakers of our Blue Planet.”

Valentino said that although the tank has been a challenge to maintain, she’s pleased with how much students have learned by having it in their science classroom.

“Students have learned that dog whelks are carnivorous,” she said. “It’s incredible to see the lobsters when they are excavating, to see hermit crabs switching their shells, to have students learn how to tell if a lobster is male or female or to watch the lobsters and crabs when they’re molting.”

She said despite living near the ocean, many students are just learning about everything the ocean has to offer for the first time in her classroom.

“I’ve found that the tank gives them a better appreciation of what’s in our local community,” Valentino said. “They have learned how to keep other creatures healthy and that’s important because we live where the land meets the sea.”

— Executive Editor Ed Pierce can be reached at 282-1535 or by email at editor@journaltribune.com