Lisgar & Colonel By 2018

This week on campus we welcomed students from Lisgar Collegiate Institute and Colonel By Secondary School from the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. The students were engaged in marine biology by exploring the bay on foot and by boat. During low tide the students searched the intertidal zone for animals and seaweeds. At high tide the students gathered subtidal animals by boat or studied the specimens they collected in the lab. The students also went whale watching with Quoddy Link Marine and took an overnight trip to Grand Manan Island to explore island industries.

Identifying plankton collected from the bay.

Cool find! This medusa is the reproductive stage of a hydrozoan.

Drawings of the plankton.

Larva of a gastropod at 40x magnification.

Collecting plankton on the Huntsman research vessel, the Fundy Spray.

Sea cucumber found while sorting through the benthic drag.

Sponge

This sea star is supposed to have five arms.

Sea peaches

Rock crab

That's a big sea star!

Day 2 started with a trip to explore the intertidal zone at low tide.

Searching under rocks to find animals.

Sea stars attached to the under side of a rock in the tide pool.

Back in the lab drawing and describing the live marine invertebrates.

Learning about the anatomy and life cycle of lobsters. Notice the tail is half and half.

Getting a closer look at urchins while studying echinoderm anatomy. 

Exploring a muddy beach to see what animals live in the sediment when the tide goes out.

Winners of the longest worm competition: blood worm

and the milky ribbon worm.

 

Collecting data on the invasive green crabs.

Testing to see how temperature affects the feeding rate of barnacles.

Does size affect the flipping rate of urchins?

South Carleton, Earl of March & Osgoode 2018

This week on campus we have students from three schools within the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board: Earl of March Secondary School and South Carleton  and Osgoode Township High Schools. The students are introduced to marine biology in the lab and in the field while exploring around St. Andrews and Grand Manan Island.

Identifying plankton collected from the bay while on the research vessel, the Fundy Spray.

View of plankton at 40x magnification.

Touring the Fundy Discovery Aquarium.

Skate egg in the touch tank.

Sorting through the animals collected from the bottom of the bay.

brittle star

jonah crab

shrimp

Gathering data on the temperature and salinity of the water at different depths.

Collecting plankton to study in the lab.

Day 2 began by drawing and describing the animals collected from the bay.

Learning to use field guides for identification.

Exploring the intertidal zone at low tide.

The students found animals, such as sea stars and urchins hiding under the rocks.

Searching for invasive green crabs.

Data is gathered on the size and gender of each crab that is found.

On the ferry headed to Grand Manan Island.

Checking out a local delicacy, dulse.

On the hunt for seaweed at Long Pond Beach at the Anchorage Provincial Park.

Making a dichotomous key using the collected seaweeds.

The challenge was to find the longest seaweed with the holdfast, stipe and blade.

Lobster 101 - learning about the lobster industry from Captain Peter Wilcox.

Peter is busy preparing his trips for the upcoming lobster season in November.

Basalt cliffs at Southwest Head.

There were lots of seals seen in the water below the cliffs.

We went whale watching with Seawatch Tours. We saw a fin whale and minke whale what we didn't catch photos of. Thank you to one of the students for the following pictures!

We had a Northern flicker tagging along.

 We spotted a fin in the water...

and it was an ocean sunfish (Mola mola)!

We found a humpback whale rolling in a patch of seaweed on the surface. The humpback is laying on its side. We can see the ventral grooves and a pectoral fin. 

Dorsal fin

Sticking it's head out of the water.

One side of the fluke.

 

Pectoral fin in the air.

Notice the tubercles (bumps) on the humpback's face.

Pectoral fin in the air. 

Humpbacks can be identified by the unique pattern on the bottom of their flukes. This whale is Patches. Patches is a male and is at least 38 years old.

The group divided to complete various behaviour experiments. This group is studying the effect of temperature on the feeding rate of barnacles.

Does size affect the flipping rate of sea urchins?