Making our own fish tanks

When we worked on the Baltic Sea we made our own aquariums. We worked with mixed age groups for this project with groups of 3-4 pupils. The groups chose 3-4 fish and drew and coloured the fish on a white paper. (The fish in the picture are not native to the Baltic Sea as this aquarium was a test run). The students investigated different fish that live in the Baltic Sea and drew some of those fish.

The aquarium was made of cardboard boxes (the lid from a copy paper cardboard box). We laminated empty laminating pouches to get the "glass walls" for the fish tank. The laminated walls were sturdy and didn't fold over. The back wall was made by laminating a coloured paper. The walls were glues on the inside of the cardboad box using hot glue. When the glue was dry enough we stapled the corners of the walls together for better structure.

The bottom of the tank was filled with sand and stones to resemble a sea bed.

We used 3-4 steel rods to make beams across the fish tank. We hung fishing line from the beams and fastened the line to the fishes, so they appear to swim in the tank.