Marine Biology: Investigate a massive fish death Virtual Lab

Can you get to the bottom of a mysterious massive fish-killing? In this simulation, you will be an environmental investigator to solve this fish kill mystery. You will learn about oxygen levels in water and its impact on fish, and energy flow in an aquatic food web. You will perform a fish necropsy and analyze the level of dissolved oxygen by gathering data from fish and water samples to help test your hypothesis.

Analyze the oxygen levels in water

You will first have to collect water samples from the bay where the fish were found. Using a spectrophotometer, you will compare these samples to known values to investigate whether low oxygen in the lake could have caused the massive fish death. Do the fish exhibit symptoms that correlate with low oxygen levels?

Dissection of a fish

Complete a fish necropsy without getting your hands dirty! Dive into the dissection to examine how the fish’s physiological responses can shed some light on the cause behind the fish death. In this simulation, you can skip the long waiting times that would normally occur in real-life necropsies and immediately get your hands on the results to continue your investigation.

Solve the mystery

In this fish-killing investigation, you will have to gather several pieces of information that you will need to figure out what caused the massive fish death. Will you be able to put the pieces together to solve the mystery?