Take one sandy beach, teachers and schoolchildren with highly curious minds and you have an ideal situation for marine biology education.
Pupils, teachers and parents from Taieri Beach School spent Thursday afternoon whitebaiting at Taieri Mouth.
What resulted was that once the children got bored with whitebaiting, they took to the sand in search of anything alive.
From crabs to cockles and cockabullies, the 24 pupils loved picking them up, checking them out and collecting them in buckets.
Teacher Trudy Pankhurst said it was a great way to teach children about a local resource and take advantage of the school's proximity to the beach.
They also spent the morning supporting Clean Up New Zealand by collecting "bags and bags of rubbish" from around the area.
Despite not catching many whitebait, there was sufficient for a couple of patties for everyone at a cook-up in the school kitchen.
