Huntsman Marine Science Centre: Ashbury College

Sunday evening a group of 29 students and 4 teachers from Ashbury College arrived at the Huntsman campus from Ottawa, and settled into Needler Hall. They were excited and ready to start their weeklong immersion into marine biology Monday morning when they met with the Huntsman Education staff for their introduction to our facility and the area.

For the day the group was split into 3 groups to rotate through a trip on the research vessel the Fundy Spray, the plankton lab, and the tour of the Fundy Discovery Aquarium. The students got a treat at the aquarium, as they were the first school group to see the new seahorse exhibit. They also got to view live animals that are native to the Bay of Fundy including harbour seals, lobsters, and wolffish, as well as, touch the skates, rock crabs, and a number of other animals in the touch pools.

While out on the research vessel the students collected plankton to use during the plankton lab. The boat crew also conducted a number of scallop drags to allow the students to see, touch, and collect firsthand the animals they will be using in their labs the rest of the week. The animals they collected included scallops, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, hermit crabs, sea peaches, and sea stars. Some of the brave students also had a taste of fresh from the ocean (i.e. raw!) scallop that they caught. The girls were definitely braver than the boys! A secchi disk and a salinometer were used to gather data on the light penetration, temperature, and salinity of the water.

During the plankton lab the students used the microscopes to view the live phytoplankton and zooplankton they collected. They drew, in fine detail, a number of different diatom species, as well as lots of copepods and other zooplankton.

Yesterday the students also visited the beach at Indian Point to see how many phyla of animals they could discover living in the intertidal zone. Hiding under rocks and seaweed they found green crabs, sea urchins, sideswimmers, and sea stars, above the rocks they found periwinkles and lots of barnacles. The students that found the greatest diversity won some yummy local Ganong chocolate! An important lesson some of the students also learned while visiting the beach was that their boots are only waterproof to the tops!

After a yummy supper at Anderson House the students received a presentation from Danielle Dion, a biologist with one of the local whale watching companies, in preparation for their whale watching excursion today to Grand Manan.

Below are some pictures from Ashbury’s first day at the Huntsman Marine Science Centre.