Equipped with scavenger hunt lists, buckets, and a willingness to get muddy, students from the Boys and Girls Club plunged into the salt marsh on April 18 in pursuit of nature in their own back yard.

The budding young explorers learned about the marsh on a field trip that is part of a year-long Boys and Girls Club educational program about fish and their environment entitled "Kukoo Go Fish."

The field trip was done in connection with educators from the Buzzards Bay Coalition.

"Our goal is to help the kids reconnect with their own backyard," said Robert Hancock, vice president of education and public engagement with the Coalition.

The children, armed with a lists of the targeted specimens, took off to the salt marsh behind the Club to embark on a scavenger hunt for fiddler crabs, mussels, and even the occasional shoe.

Halfway through the hunt, Michael Sivvianakis and Brandon Lake crowded around Hancock to ask questions about the fiddler crabs they were finding.

"I never knew the fiddler crab has so many little hairs on it until I picked one up and looked at it," said Sivvianakis.

Fiddler crabs were the popular finds for the day, giving Margo Connolly, senior educator for the Coalition and leader of the hunt, an opportunity to teach about their role in the salt marsh.

"They burrow and build tunnels, helping [the salt marsh] decompose more," Connolly said.

Many of the kids had their own observations, such as Jarrod Westgate, who described the inside of a mussel he found as "scrambled eggs."

Connolly asked the children to put the animals back "hopefully where you found them" and the students returned to the Club, where they were asked to sit in front of a big white container containing a large animal wrapped in black plastic.

The animal, a frozen fish called a sturgeon, needed the help of two aides in addition to Connolly to be lifted out of the container.

"It's kind of like a dinosaur fish," said Connolly, explaining that the fish can get up to 15 feet long and weigh 800 pounds.

Connolly added that everybody was lucky to see one, since sturgeons are an endangered species.

Samantha Hunt, a third-grader at Minot Forest Elementary School, was concerned with a more practical matter, however.

"What if it just unfroze and started to eat us," she asked.

The children ended the day inside -- painting a mural of a salt marsh and stamping pictures of starfish, clams, and other marine animals onto pink and blue t-shirts from the Buzzards Bay Coalition.

The Kukoo Go Fish program builds up to a gala fundraiser, which will be held on June 16 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at the Kittansett Club in Marion.

The educational aspect of the program aims to teach Boys and Girls Club members about science and literacy. Activities include arts and crafts and field trips such as the one conducted by the Buzzards Bay Coalition.

"It was something new," Decas Elementary fifth grader Kylie Decas said about the foray into the salt marsh. "We walked around and we found the animals and stuff. I've never done something like that."

Decas added: "I learned that the different creatures that I might not think live near the ocean do, so you have to be careful where you step so you don't destroy things."