Day 17 - 5/21 - More of the "fun stuff" plus, stand back, "I'm going to try science"

If you are just tuning into to the ongoing drama that is the first ever BYU-Idaho Marine Biology Field Experience, then you'll need to know that yesterday we spend about 3 hours learning about life in the nekton.  Today's topic was a follow up to yesterday's intro.  We spent about 3 hours today discussing the life and times of whales, seals, sea lions, sea turtles, sea snakes, etc.  The class loved it, though they do sometimes have a tough time keeping the old eyelids open during the class meeting after lunch.  That's OK, I get it.  After all, some of them are up the middle of the night collecting data and making other time-sensitive observations.

We have had absolutely fantastic weather so far this trip...but today a front moved through.  And we finally arrived in Oregon geographically AND climatically.  It wasn't bad though...after all, it's supposed to rain...it's Oregon!

I took a break after dinner this evening after working on lecture materials, and I popped over to the lab to see if science was happening.

Here's what I found at the lab:

Blake and Dallas were running experiments to see how dungeness crab larvae react to different colors of light.. 

Dallas and Blake were selecting juvenile crabs to use in the next run of their experiment...

And I'm here to tell you that having a hand-full of these little critters is a strange sensation.

Jessica and Bailey's work station for measuring chlorophyll concentrations was all set up and ready to run the the next day's samples.

Daniel and Tony's data were entered into a spreadsheet after the day's work.

Here's the experimental set-up for their substrate choice experiment.  Just FYI, it's a Randomized Complete Block Design.  You'll have to ask them about that.

Elysa, Mackenzie, Tony, and Daniel's larval cultures were in good shape in the seawater table...

...and the embryology station was ready for the next person's turn to check the cultures and record data.

Lindsey (L) and Kristin (R) were collecting temperature and salinity readings as part of their work...

...and, yes, all of the students smile like this ALL THE TIME as they work.  You try it and see what it feels like when you generate your own data!

In the meanwhile Tony was hard at work uploading photos for a slide presentation each student is required to submit by the end of the course.

That was the action in the lab, so I strolled over toward the library...

Elysa and Mackenzie were hard at work in the library doing background reading and a literature search (again - way to go!) as part of their work for the sea slug embryology project.

So, yep, science is actually happening.  You might want to stand back!

That's a wrap for Day 17.