Royal West Academy - 2019

Last week on campus we had a group of sec 4 (grade 10) students from the Montreal school, Royal West Academy. This school has been coming to the Huntsman for many, many years as part of their Enriched Biology course. While in St. Andrews the students are exposed to different marine habitats. They also study plankton, seaweed and invertebrates in the lab. Here are a few photos from their marine immersion.

Exploring the intertidal zone at low tide.

This group found a few green crabs.

Exploring the subtidal invertebrates aboard the research vessel, the Fundy Spray.

Rock crab

Blood stars

Plankton concentrations are still low this time of year.

Studying plankton in the lab.

The students had to identify and draw marine invertebrates, such as this scallop.

Study of zonation patterns in the intertidal zone.

Measuring the elevation for the zonation project. 

Studying the external anatomy of live sea urchins. What parts can you identify?

Behaviour experiments: how does temperature affect the feeding rate of barnacles?

How do different organisms react to changes in salinity?

Does size affect the flipping rate of sea urchins?

Exploring a muddy shore at low tide.

The tide kept pushing us further up the beach!

Blood worm

Blood worm shooting out its proboscis! On the end there are 4 black teeth!

One group found a milky ribbon worm that was at least 3 feet long!!

Soft-shell clams

Shoreline cleanup at Pagan Point Nature Preserve.

Lots of rope on the shore.

Thank you for helping us remove all of this plastic debris from the shore!  

Crestwood Preparatory College - 2019

The field season has begun! This weekend we welcomed Grade 11 students from Crestwood Preparatory College in Toronto to the Huntsman campus for an immersive marine biology field course. During their five days in St. Andrews the students are introduced to the diversity of the local marine habitats, animals and seaweeds. All of the introductory time in the field and lab gives the students a foundation of knowledge to complete a behaviour lab. Before leaving the students presented the findings of their experiments. 

Benthic (scallop) drag on the research vessel, the Fundy Spray.

brittle star

blood stars & common sea stars

Hermit crab missing its shell (it picked a new one back in the lab).

A few different species of phytoplankton viewed through the microscope.

A type of zooplankton...perhaps a polychaete larva?

Exploring the intertidal zone at low tide.

The students found lots of sea stars & urchins underneath the rocks.

Behaviour experiments in the lab. Studying osmoregulation in intertidal organisms such as sea stars, green crabs & seaweed.

How does temperature affect the feeding rate of barnacles?

Does size determine the time it takes a sea urchin to flip right side up?

A fun & unexpected find when working in the lab. A toad crab zoea! 40x magnified. 

Searching for invasive green crabs.

Crabs are marked and then data is gathered on the size and gender. Mostly tiny crabs found during this field study.

Making a dichotomous key of seaweeds.