A new format this year for the Marine Science exam saw students writing paper 1 yesterday afternoon then they reconvened this morning for paper 2.
Congratulations marine scientists of year 42!! I know marine science will always be in your heart and you all have a special place in my heart.
Link to more photos…
While out with divers at Prison Rocks this afternoon, we were treated to various spectacles, including a gull standing on the water (above) and Eskil doing his internal assessment work (below).
We also saw one tugboat, then a second tugboat come around William Head followed by a frigate, the HMCS Ottawa. The frigate was being escorted and assisted by the tugboats as she headed to the Navy dock in Pedder Bay. The Ottawa certainly dwarfed our Pearson College sailboats!
Some very sad news to report about one of the ocean’s strongest and most passionate advocates, Rob Stewart. He died last week while exploring the depths off the Florida Keys.
Pearson College Marine Science students did have the chance to meet and hear Rob Stewart speak when he came to Victoria five years ago, in February 2012. See photo below and link.
Article in Globe and Mail by Paul Watson.
Article in Outside on ‘What happened to Rob Stewart?’
His courage and dedication to conserving marine organisms and ecosystems will live on in his films and all of the people that he inspired. Thank you Rob!
After learning from Ivonne yesterday that there was a dead sea lion at Weir’s Beach and after getting permission from DFO, first and second year Biology students participated in a necropsy of a California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) this morning.
Above is how we found it initially yesterday (31 January 2017) – apparently the sea lion washed up on Weir’s Beach, headless, on 20 January.
We began the necropsy by opening up the abdominal cavity.
We excised the liver, stomach and small intestine.
Several students worked on stretching out the small intestine then they measured it to be 51.7 m long!
We then moved into the thoracic cavity, after cutting through the blubber and thick, dark red pectoral muscles.
The heart, right lung and and trachea were removed and examined by students.
We were blasted by sand and a bitterly cold wind throughout, but students remained engaged & interested. An amazing opportunity!
The photo below is my favourite – Emily is holding the mesentery in the wind.
See Flickr page for many more photos.
Once again, first year marine scientists carried out individual investigations into the properties of seawater.
Many students did lab-based investigations:
And a few went out into the field… Yeji measured the variation in salinity with location in Pedder Bay by kayaking (she got a bit wet and had her pants dried by Hazuki, who investigated the effect of wind speed on water movement). And Quni was prepared for the wet weather but as you can see below, returned to the lab in the sunshine!
Inspiring Girls Expeditions is accepting applications through January 31, 2017 for free summer science and wilderness expeditions in Alaska and Washington for girls ages 16 to 17.
Three teams of up to nine teenage girls and three instructors will spend 12 days exploring and learning about mountain glaciers or fjords with tidewater glaciers. They’ll conduct scientific field studies with professional glaciologists, oceanographers, artists and mountaineers.
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Thanks to Abbie for the photos!
After a very cold night, there was a layer of ice on Pedder Bay again this morning which allowed for some interesting observations and data collection by marine scientists.
Data below were collected by second year Marine Science students at two different times of the morning.
| 8:05 | am | 11:00 | am | |
| Depth (m) | Temp (oC) | Salinity (ppt) | Temp (oC) | Salinity (ppt) |
| 0 | 3.7 | 28.4 | 4.6 | 25.9 |
| 0.5 | 5.8 | 29.3 | 5.8 | 30.1 |
| 1.0 | 6.4 | 30.3 | 6.7 | 30.6 |
| 2.0 | 6.7 | 30.6 | 6.7 | 30.7 |
| 3.0 | 6.7 | 30.7 | 6.8 | 30.8 |
| 4.0 | 6.8 | 30.7 | 6.9 | 30.8 |
| 5.0 | 6.8 | 30.7 | 6.9 | 30.8 |
One major conclusion can be drawn:
The water is COLD (right down to 5 m where we usually measure temperatures around 10oC). It is so cold that students’ tongues are turning blue:
Wait a minute… the cold is not the reason for the blue tongues in these Biology students!
We are also experiencing big tides these days (2.8 m tidal range). High tides in the early afternoon:
Then low tides at night:
Emilio, Heather & Millie at low tide (20:15 11 Jan 2017)
Interesting times!
Pearson College (PC) students have had the opportunity to connect with Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) in a few ways lately. During block week (12-15 December 2016), second year Marine Science students travelled to the headquarters of ONC at the University of Victoria. Thanks to Natasha, Jessica and Mercedes for all that you taught us. In the photo above, PC students are using aluminum foil to create boats in a competition to hold the most ‘fish’ (actually marbles, metal washers and foam bits) in water of different densities.
Yesterday, 10 January 2017, Dwight Owens from ONC (and father of PC 41 Tessa Owens!) came to PC to present ‘Hot, Sour and Breathless: Oceans under stress’ to first year marine scientists. It was a wonderful review and preview – thank you Dwight!
And one final connection with ONC that I must mention, Dave Riddell spent almost two hours with me on 23 November 2016 guiding me through Oceans 2.0 which allowed me to assign a data analysis task to first year students. Thank you Dave!!
We are very lucky to be so close to such an incredible organization staffed by wonderful educators and scientists and doing leading edge marine science.
Pancake ICE, that is!
Defined in a sea ice glossary as “Predominantly circular pieces of ice from 30 centimeters to 3 meters in diameter, and up to about 10 centimeters in thickness with raised rims due to pieces striking against one another. It may be formed on a slight swell from grease ice, shuga, or slush or as a result of the breaking of ice rind, nilas, or under severe conditions of swell or waves, of gray ice.”
Pancake ice is not common in Pedder Bay, but due to many days of cold air temperatures, it is abundant around the Pearson College dock and around the Pedder Bay Marina.
I did a quick measurement of surface salinity (ppt) and seawater temperature (oC):
Yikes!! The poor mergansers, their feet must be very cold!
Pearson College Marine Science 