Huntsman Marine Science Centre: Ashbury College

Friday, 30 August 2013

Ashbury College - Day 3

With high tide in the morning the students began the day in the lab observing the invertebrates they collected from the beach and while on the research vessel. During the lab the students did drawings and descriptions of the invertebrates, such as whelks, green crabs, bread crumb sponge, sea peaches, urchins, and sea stars. This lab was fun because it gave the students a chance to see the animals up close and also to observe their movement.

Just before lunch when the tide was going down the students headed to the beach on campus to mark periwinkles for their mark and recapture lab. Each group chose a home base along the seaweed line and marked 25 periwinkles with bright nail polish. After 24 hours the students will return and count both marked and unmarked periwinkles in their home base to get an estimate of the population.

In the afternoon the students learned that at the Huntsman Worms are Winners. Armed with buckets and shovels the students headed to Pottery Creek, a muddy beach. They were amazed to find a great diversity of marine worms including clam worms, blood worms, milky ribbon worms, and opal worms. They were also amazed to find that some of the worms have teeth and can bite. A good life lesson! While in this location the group also became master crab hunters and helped gather data on the invasive green crabs.

To finish up the afternoon the students had a talk from Dr. Roxanne Gillett on Right Whale Conservation Genetics. She described the significance of collecting the whale feces to determine genetics.

In the evening the group met in the lab to focus on the echinoderms. The students used the microscopes to observe some of the smaller parts of the sea urchins and sea stars, including the madreporite, the pedicellaria, anus, and the tube feet. A treat was getting to see the urchins pooping!