Crestwood Prep - Day 4

Saturday the students had a chance to present the results of their zonation lab and the invertebrate behaviour experiments to their teachers, peers and instructors from the Huntsman before boarding the bus and heading back to Ontario.  Thank you for a great week!

Below are pictures of a few of the groups with their zonation posters.

Crestwood Prep - Day 3

This morning the students spent the morning in the lab conducting behaviour experiments on some of the marine invertebrates they had collected while on the boat earlier in the week.  The experiments were testing the effect of temperature change on the feeding rate of barnacles and determining if size effects the flipping rate of sea stars and urchins.  I look forward to tomorrow when the students will be presenting the results of their experiments!

For the afternoon the students headed to two different intertidal zones to explore.  At the first location there was lots of rocks and seaweed and the students found lots of interesting animals hiding under the rocks including green crabs, sea stars, urchins, rock gunnel fish, and sponge. One of the really cool finds was all the sea slugs and their white egg masses!

The second location was a muddy beach so shovels were necessary to find the animals that were hiding in the sediment.  The students found blood worms and clam worms and were amazed to learn that they have teeth and can bite!  Yes, biting worms!

Counting the number of times the barnacle's 

cirri come out in 20 second increments.

The barnacles on the back of the rock are feeding.

  

Waiting for the sea star to flip right side up.

This urchin is almost finished flipping.

Exploring the intertidal zone.

Little fish called rock gunnels were found under the rocks.

Under this rock there were urchins and 

lots of sea slugs and their egg masses.

A female with eggs.

Digging into the sediment at Pottery Creek.

A blood worm showing its proboscis.

A beautiful clam worm.

Crestwood Prep - Day 2

Today the students started their day in the lab studying seaweed in preparation for their zonation lab later in the day.  The rest of the morning the students toured the Huntsman Fundy Discovery Aquarium and the ARC (Atlantic Reference Centre), a museum for researchers that houses many species of fish and invertebrates that inhabit the North Atlantic Ocean.

After a delicious lunch at Anderson House the students headed to Holey Point to conduct a zonation study in the intertidal zone.  The students gathered data on the seaweed and animals living every 2.5 meters along a transect line.  It was a bit of a damp day but the weather is looking up for tomorrow.

Identifying seaweeds in the lab.

Checking out the collection at the ARC.

Rebecca showing the group a tripod fish from the deep sea.

Wowzers!  Look at those teeth!

A gulper eel from the deep sea.  Its stomach can expand to eat

fish bigger than itself!

Basket stars on a piece of coral.

The porbeagle shark head...which some of the students kissed...gross!!

Learning about the giant tides of the Bay of Fundy.

Enjoying the touch pool in the aquarium.

Lily the lovely blue lobster.

The students got to view the harbour seals having their lunch.

Zonation in the intertidal zone.

What's in the quadrate?

Some of the students found green crabs.

Crestwood Prep - Day 1

Yesterday Grade 11 students from Crestwood Preparatory College arrived on campus bright and early after an very, very long bus trip from Toronto.  When we met the students for their introduction they were all dressed in their rain gear and rubber boots ready to start their immersion into marine biology.  They were eager!

Throughout the day the students conducted plankton tows and scallop drags while aboard the Huntsman research vessel, the Fundy Spray, viewed phytoplankton and zooplankton using microscopes in the aquarium lab, and studied the invertebrates collected earlier in the day from the boat trip.

Below are some picture highlights from the day.

Looking smart in all their lovely rain gear!

The first group on the Fundy Spray.

Studying plankton in the lab.

A copepod.

The second group boarding the research vessel.

The tide in this area can drop vertically 8 meters!

Viewing the plankton collected.

Our captain emptying the scallop drag for us to study.

The students were eager to see what we had found!

Sponge.

A female hermit crab without a shell, allowing us to see her black eggs.

Taking data on the temperature and salinity of the water.

Back in the lab studying some sea peached collected while on the boat.

IDing a common sea star.

No School, Camp's Cool! - Earth Day

Today the theme for the No School, Camp's Cool Program was Earth Day.  Below are some pictures from our fun day.

Playing a game to show what it is like for a marine mammal

 to be entangled in trash.

Doing a beach clean up.

We found quite a bit of plastic!

Doing an experiment about seabirds and oil spills.

Yikes, that feather didn't do well in the oil!

Playing a game to learn about overfishing.

Oh no!  The ocean is empty!

Decorating and then playing an invasive species board game.

Making shark hats.

Playing a game to understand how seabirds 

can be affected by plastic in the ocean.