Thirty-six Year 41 Marine Science students (the biggest cohort ever!) wrote their IB examination yesterday. The first IB exam of the season may be over, but I am confident that marine science will always be in the hearts of these students!
Warm wishes for much future success to all of you! And please do keep in touch.
While F block was getting ready to do their transect study at Witty’s Lagoon – Tower Point yesterday, Mara found the first of many ‘by the wind sailors’ (Vellela vellela) that we would see in the afternoon.
These are planktonic cnidarians (related to jellyfish, anemones and corals) which float at the surface of the ocean and are usually found in the open ocean. Sometimes though, when the winds are blowing onshore, they arrive at beaches, usually in great numbers.
The one in the photo above is upside down (or perhaps I should say ‘sail-side’ down) in a tidepool with some very photosynthetically active green tangle weed (Acrosiphonia coalita) and some tentacles are visible.
Even though we weren’t able to get to Race Rocks for our last class because Second Nature is in the shop being repaired, year 41 marine scientists had a wonderful end to their two year experience.
With each class, we did an excursion to the Navy buoy then to the Pedder Bay marina for ice cream.
See more photos of our last day.
Last week as their penultimate field trip, second year Marine Science students explored Witty’s Lagoon as an example of an estuary. We measured water temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen at six locations along the estuary. The photo above shows Michael reading out the data that he and Michał collected (seen in the photo below) on Wednesday 13 April.
Noëmi and Kevin collected similar data from the same location (‘Log lake’) on the previous day (Tuesday 12 April 2016).
In the photo below, Tamara & Laura collect data from the ‘ocean’ site.
Data for all three days shown below:
The site that we named ‘Skunk cabbage creek’ was very near this beautiful plant.
We also explored the salt marsh and some of its inhabitants – for several students the plants were cool the spiders were not!
We also found some wonderful invertebrates, both in the estuary and on the sandy beach.
First year marine scientists have been investigating tidepools at Weir’s Beach today and at Witty’s Lagoon, Tower Point over the past few days. Above Jacqueline and Ochuko are making observations about a high tidepool.
We also observed some interesting organisms and events:
A shaggy mouse nudibranch (Aeolidia papillosa) at Weir’s Beach (perhaps the same individual that Roxi spotted last year). These slugs eat anemones! And speaking of anemones…
A dividing aggregating anemone (Anthopleura elegantissima).
A spawning aggregation of whelks (Nucella lamellosa) and an abundance of egg capsules.
We’re not sure how it arrived in the Floating lab, but several students have observed a beautiful nudibranch called the opalescent sea slug (Hermissenda crassicornis) crawling around in our seawater table.
Thanks to Maya and Zoli for the photos!
Pearson College Marine Science 