In my own words · Pensacola, FL

Why I love sharks

A blacktip reef shark swims just under the sunlit surface, above a head of coral, at Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Pacific Ocean. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Sharks" page — read by families in Pensacola, FL. — A blacktip reef shark swims just under the sunlit surface, above a head of coral, at Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Pacific Ocean. Kevin Lafferty, USGS · Public domain

They were here before trees were.
They can feel electricity in the water.
Most of them are nothing like the movies.

You can love sharks in Pensacola.

What it really is

Sharks sense electric fields, and their body plan is older than trees.

Three things to try today

Find out how long sharks have existed.
Compare that to trees.
Find one shark fact the movies got wrong.

A USGS biological science technician in purple gloves implants an acoustic tracking tag into a juvenile salmon on a river bank. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Sharks" page — read by families in Pensacola, FL. — A USGS biological science technician in purple gloves implants an acoustic tracking tag into a juvenile salmon on a river bank. Ryan Tomka, USGS · Public domain

For the grown-up reading this

A child in Pensacola, FL who loves sharks is not unusual. A child in Pensacola, FL who is told that loving sharks is unusual — that is the problem. The Pensacola–Ferry Pass–Brent, FL metro area has about 544,949 residents, ranking 108th in the country.

Sharks predate trees by roughly a hundred million years. It resets a child's sense of deep time.

If the kid who loves this is a girl

Read what one popular teacher said to one little girl who took out the classroom trash without being asked — and what that girl did with the rest of her life.

Girls are great at math — Pensacola, FL →