Ottawa Catholic Schools

For over 25 years high school students from the Ottawa Catholic School Board have been travelling to St. Andrews for a marine biology field course at the Huntsman. The students spend time on our research vessel, explore various shorelines, observe marine invertebrate behaviour and anatomy in the lab and use microscopes to peer into the amazing world of plankton. The students are also exposed to maritime life on Grand Manan Island through whale watching, visiting a lobster fisherman, hiking to a lighthouse and learning about the dulse industry.

Below are some pictures from the 2016 field course.

Viewing live phytoplankton and zooplankton collected from the bay.

Enjoying the touch tank at the Huntsman Fundy Discovery Aquarium.

A jar full of plankton.

We used the benthic drag while on our research vessel, the Fundy Spray.

Sorting the animals collected from the bottom of the bay.

Lots of sea cucumbers!

Using the secchi disk to determine the light penetration in the bay.

Identifying and observing the animals collected from the boat.

Learning about invasive species in the bay.

Studying the anatomy of echinoderms.

Testing out the awesome new microscope camera donated to us by Lumenera.

Exploring the intertidal zone.

We found lots of animals including fish called rock gunnels.

The students saw 12 humpbacks while whale watching with Sea Watch Tours!

This whale sustained an injury to its fluke by a ship strike.

The humpbacks were very active at the surface including spyhopping.

Humpbacks can be identified by the unique pattern on their fluke. This is Quixote.

Humpbacks are positively buoyant which means they need to raise their fluke and push themselves down when diving.

Grey seals lounging.

Back on the mainland studying the effect of temperature on the feeding rate of barnacles.

Studying the flipping behaviour of sea stars.

Bell ringer...how much do you remember from the week?!

One of the questions from the bell ringer. Do you know the answers?

Throughout the week we have also been posting some pictures from the groups marine biology adventures, on the Huntsman Education Department twitter page.