Children of the Tide

Let's be honest here. When was the last time you got a little tug on your heartstrings staring at a Hallmark card featuring a baby sea urchin? How about a baby sand dollar? Sea snail? Chiton? Barnacle? Fact is, marine invertebrates have kind of gotten the short end of the sentimental gift card stick. Filmmakers David and Andrea Brugman's Children of the Tide, a non-narrated, nicely scored educational "music" video, uses microscopic time-lapse photography to get up close and personal with little sea critters, many of which begin life as plankton before going through larval stages and metamorphosing into adults after a period of days, weeks or months. While it's questionable whether general audiences (fetishists excluded) will be much attracted to the sight of an "urchin releasing sperm into the ocean," with or without a nice soundtrack, there's no question that junior and senior science teachers will find this program and its accompanying guide a real boon to a unit on marine life. Recommended. Aud: J, H. (R. Pitman)