How Visiting an Aquarium Helps Us

Appreciate God as Creator

One of the many questions out there about Christianity is “How do you know there is a God?” While there are different answers to this question, one of them is something seen all around us with our eyes. Even God’s Word in the Bible tells us in Luke 19:40 that the rocks will cry out in praise to God and “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). Everyone can experience this awe of God and the wonderment at His creation in different places and circumstances. You never know where you or your child will experience that certainty that “this must have been purposefully created.”

Visiting an aquarium allows people to see up close the life forms from the water. If the aquarium is well-staffed and well-trained, guests will learn much about how these forms of life exist in the water. The more you learn about how these fish and animals adapt, reproduce, keep themselves safe, and feed themselves, the more you can be convinced this couldn’t have happened by chance.

Seeing God’s Handiwork in the Aquarium

Depending on which aquarium you visit and what talk you listen to, you will learn different facts about the species there. Here are some possible ways you may see evidence for a Creator while visiting an aquarium.

Stingrays

Stingrays are a fish that do not have any bones; they are made primarily of cartilage. They are related to sharks and are most commonly found in shallow coastal waters in temperate seas. Stingrays spend a great deal of their time partially buried in the sand, only moving with the tides. Due to this time spent in sand and being in seas with other predators, you can imagine adaptations have been in play so they didn’t become extinct many hundreds of years ago. Here are some ways stingrays adapt to keep themselves safe.

A stingray's colouring mimics the sand where they live. Since they spend so much time partially buried in the sand, this allows them to be camouflaged from predators.
Juvenile stingrays are the same colours but darker shades of those colours so the moms can find them! They are not as well camouflaged so their mother can find them on the ocean floor. As they get older, their colour lightens to help them perfectly camouflage.
The bluespotted stingray is the bright blue colour that it is to warn other fish and predators that it is venomous.

This is something that has been on my mind so many times over the years. How can animals end up being the exact right colour they need to be for the exact surroundings that they live in accidentally? Maybe if that happened in one case, but there are so many animals in our world that are the perfect colour to blend in with their surroundings. That points to a Creator! It seems easier to believe that this is purposeful rather than accidental.

See the Stingray Blend in with the Sand

Epaulette Shark

These shallow water sharks are small sharks, typically under 1 metre long. They are often found in coral reefs or tide pools. Larger fishes, such as sharks, are the predators for these epaulette sharks. The epaulette is the large back spot behind its pectoral fin. The epaulette almost looks like an eye, and that is not an accident. These sharks hide from predators by their camouflaged colour but also by using the epaulette on the side of their body. They can go into caves and position themselves so just that black spot is in the opening. Because of that, if a predator peeks in, they will think it is the eye of a much larger creature and go away!

Again it makes you wonder, how can each of this type of shark accidentally have the black epaulette spot and also live in waters where there are caves for them to hide in? The more a person learns about living things, the more it points to acknowledging a Creator.

Shark Eggs

Did you know that some sharks lay eggs and some birth babies like mammals and humans? These smaller sharks lay eggs that have long seaweed like tendrils attached to them which are anchors. The mother shark uses these anchors to attach the egg in a place she can come back and find it.

A very cool thing about these shark eggs is that if you hold it up to the light, you can see through! You can see if the egg is empty (not fertilized) or if you see something inside you will know it has been fertilized and is growing life. If the egg is seen to be fertilized in an aquarium, they take it out of the tank to protect it since it is a living thing.

How interesting that this fertilized shark egg is seen as a life as soon as any type of yolk or embryo can be seen inside the egg, yet this is not the same for humans. It makes a person wonder how even nonbelievers recognize the importance of life of these fish and animals, yet a baby almost full grown in the womb is still not protected or seen as life? It doesn’t seem to make much sense. Seeing as how these fertilized shark eggs are already protected by the mama shark, this shows God the Creator's design for life and how life is formed upon conception.

Aquariums to Visit in Canada

Find an aquarium to visit near you!

New Brunswick Huntsman Aquarium

Newfoundland Petty Harbour Mini Aquarium

Quebec Aquarium du Quebec

Ontario Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada

Alberta Bow Habitat Station

Marine Life - West Edmonton Mall

British Columbia Vancouver Aquarium

There are also some fun and educational aquariums to visit south of the border if you are travelling.

This article has been written by homeschooling staff writers of The Canadian Schoolhouse (TCS). Enjoy more of our content from TCS contributors and staff writers by visiting our themes page that has a new theme topic added every month!