Most people wear their favorite shirt as much as possible. This is not the case for Dr. Paul W. Ludden, SMU’s provost and vice president for Academic Affairs. He wears his favorite shirt, which has a sea urchin theme, only a few days a year when he hosts the sea urchin egg fertilization experiment.

Saturday, March 28, Dr. Ludden held an experiment on the process of sea urchin fertilization and cell division for the children and grandchildren of SMU faculty and staff. SMU biology students Sara Gingrich and Natalie Kashefi assisted the provost. Twenty six third graders spent the day in Umphrey Lee helping with the experiment, holding the spiky sea urchins and playing games that included a sea urchin themed scavenger hunt and “Sea Urchin Says.”

Playing with the spiky, scary looking creatures was a high point of the day for most of the kids.

“They are so amazed to be able to hold these little creatures,” said Martha Stark, whose grandchildren were in attendance.

Annemarie Byers, one of the participating children, was hesitant to hold the funny creatures at first, but quickly warmed up to it along with her peers. “It feels funny, but it doesn’t really hurt,” she said.

Sea urchins are known as the best creatures for demonstrating the process of fertilization and cell division. Not only do their cells divide rapidly – you can get up to 16 cell divisions in one day – but sea urchin eggs are a vibrant purple color and an unusually large size. For the experiment, Dr. Ludden shipped purple sea urchins or, technically, the strongylocentrotus purpuratus, from Florida.

At the beginning of the day, children were able to assist with an injection of potassium chloride. This causes the sea urchins to release gametes; but because sea urchins have no central nervous system, nothing in this process hurts them. The provost then collected the gametes and combined them on slides under a microscope, so the children could watch fertilization and cell division take place.

By lunchtime, Dr. Ludden was patiently waiting for the cell division that didn’t occur.

“We have several 100,000 eggs, not one of which will divide for us,” said Dr. Ludden, “The first time in 20 years!”

But this small mishap didn’t stop anything.

“Do you know the Boy Scout motto?” Dr. Ludden asked. “‘Be prepared.'”

He had on hand slides of all the stages of sea urchin egg division. Not only did the children get to witness the entire process, but Dr. Ludden printed a picture of a microscope image of the various stages of cell division for the children to take home.

It was obvious the children thoroughly enjoyed the sea urchin experiment. The children were enthusiastic and interested in the information taught. When Dr. Ludden asked the children what would happen if sea urchins overpopulated the ocean, one child’s comic response was that “we would have to eat more sushi!”

In his parting remarks after a successful day, Dr. Ludden said that it is important to share knowledge. He encouraged the children to go home and share what they learned with their family and friends.

“This was an excellent, excellent program for the kids,” said Lynda Delsol, mother of one of the participants.