Teaching · For Teachers

A jar of shells,
sorted like a museum.

Shells become specimens when each has a name, a place and a date. Add each shell with its class and family. The organizer sorts the collection into its branches of the mollusk family tree, checks scientific names are written properly and flags shells taken alive or without their locality, along with the clues a shell carries about how its animal lived and died.

Add a shellWhat you get
$12one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $12

Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the For Teachers toolkit, $79 for 72 items.

Your shells

The worked example is made up: a shark eye moon snail, a surf clam with a moon snail’s drill hole and a knobbed whelk taken with its animal still inside and no place written down. Saved on this device only.

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What you get

Teaching · For Teachers$12

What you finish with
A record per shell: specimen number, common and scientific names, class, family, place, date, whether the animal was alive, length, condition and five checks. Checks the scientific name and family ending; sorts the collection by class and family with counts and the size range; flags live-collected shells, unchecked collecting rules, drill holes, miswritten names, family names without -idae and shells with no place.
Who it is for
Young collectors and their families, and science teachers using a shell collection to teach classification.
Format
Browser organizer with a saved record per shell. Prints one shell, the collection in a table or a blank specimen sheet; downloads a spreadsheet (.csv); exports and imports a file.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the For Teachers toolkit ($79) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The For Teachers space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions about access, an order or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. Number each shell and label it in pencil.
  2. Add the place and date first.
  3. Find the class from the shell’s shape.
  4. Look up the family and scientific name in a field guide.
  5. Read the family tree in the side panel.

Add a shell

Classes

The five classes of shelled mollusksClassShellExamplesGastropodaOne shell, usually coiledWhelks, moon snails, conchsBivalviaTwo hinged halvesClams, scallops, oystersPolyplacophoraEight overlapping platesChitonsScaphopodaA tapered open tubeTusk shellsCephalopodaChambered, inside or noneNautilus, cuttlefishThe five classes of shelled mollusksGastropodaShell: One shell, usually coiledExamples: Whelks, moon snails, conchsBivalviaShell: Two hinged halvesExamples: Clams, scallops, oystersPolyplacophoraShell: Eight overlapping platesExamples: ChitonsScaphopodaShell: A tapered open tubeExamples: Tusk shellsCephalopodaShell: Chambered, inside or noneExamples: Nautilus, cuttlefish
Most beach shells are gastropods or bivalves. Below class come order, family, genus and species.

The drill hole

A small, perfectly round, beveled hole in a clam or snail shell is usually the work of a predatory snail. Moon snails and murexes soften the shell with acid and scrape through it with a tongue-like radula, then eat the animal inside. The hole is a record of how that animal died.

For a classroom

Shells teach classification well because the big groups are easy to see: one coiled shell or two halves. Students can sort a class set by class, then family, and write each scientific name properly, the same way a museum catalogs specimens.

Sources

  1. WoRMS Editorial Board. World Register of Marine Species, accepted names and classification (marinespecies.org).
  2. Abbott, R. T. and Morris, P. A. A Field Guide to Shells: Atlantic and Gulf Coasts and the West Indies. Peterson Field Guides.
  3. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Department of Invertebrate Zoology. Mollusk classification (naturalhistory.si.edu).
  4. National Park Service. Code of Federal Regulations, 36 CFR 2.1: preservation of natural features, and collecting rules (nps.gov).

The worked example is made up. Nothing you type is sent to Caveat. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.