Rebecca - Final Blog

Poorly sorted sediment

Well sorted sediment

Do Mole Crabs prefer a habitat with a specific sediment size and type? That was my scientific question and all of my final data points to the answer being yes. Mole Crabs prefer a habitat with a larger grain size, specifically sediment that is poorly sorted and angular because there is more room between the grains for the Mole Crab to burrow in.





I really enjoyed working on my project and all the other hands-on experiences we got to do in this lab. I realized that I have a hard time thinking like a scientist. Most of my educational life I have been told the answers instead of being able to think on my own. There is also the great fear of making mistakes or being wrong. In science, all that goes out the window. This class really reinforced that and it was a nice change of pace for me. I hope when I am a teacher with my own science class I can apply the same methods with my students so that they are able to think critically and not be so concered with making mistakes.

Deanna - Last Blog Last Class

Last Class

Well the semester always seems to take forever, at least until you are at the end and you can't believe the semester is done. This was a great class. I learned a whole lot about what it is to be a scientist.

All semester we were preparing for our project. Some of us had great results, and some of us didn't, but I know no one in the class would say they did not learn from their project. Dr. Woodall is the best. She has done everything in her human power to help us with our projects and make sure each of us were educated on each of the instruments we were supposed to learn how to operate.

This class was great! I think there are a lot of great scientists in the making. Great job on your project classmates!!! Here are some (a lot) pictures of our final class...

Project
Even though this is the final blog and it was our final class, this is not the end of our project. As a matter-of-fact, it is far from the end. Jeff and I will continue on with our testing and data collecting until we believe that we have great data and have all the bugs worked out of the project itself.

So, this may not be the end of our talking about the CMD (Current Measuring Device), but it is on here.
Signing off...

Jeff and our CMD

Reflections Grace

(OCE1001L)

My original study was lion fish, however this changed when the invasive species was so difficult to find.

 

The Oceanography lab was without doubt my favorite class. It really put into perspective for me that life and science and everything we work towards in college happens out in the field. I learned that I cannot truly be successful in what I am doing unless I have to figure out what must happen, why it must happen and how to make it happen. Science is not clean as I learned in my semester project of dissecting fish for their otoliths. Science is not taking other scientists' work and drawing conclusions. Science is forming your own question and deciding how it can be answered and why it matters to anyone even if its just you.

 

Flopping Flounder

 

Redfish

 

Lunate

 

Featherdusters

 

My final study: otoliths

Its almost scary knowing that college after Daytona State College and a career and life after that are becoming so close. I know I want to make a difference in the world, just as Angela wants to make a difference in the plastic that populates not only our nearby shores, but oceans and beaches all over the world. I want to do something that helps everyone directly and what I think will do that is studying environmental engineering (which includes chemistry).

My last question: If humans have otoliths, do our otoliths have rings that determine out age?

Angela - Reflection

Whether taking measurements with various instruments out on the Tomoka River, seining in the Ponce Inlet, or measuring sand dunes, getting to make hands-on experiences out in the field was one of my favorite parts of this course. Additionally, being able to admit to and learn from mistakes was a real relief. Usually being concerned about errors and wanting everything to be 100% perfect, I would've probably done so much planning I would have never made it out into the field for my project; instead, I feel like I got to jump into the deep end and, even though at times I was probably doggy-paddling around, with time my methods will improve and I'll be swimming like [insert name of Olympic swimmer of your choice]. At least I didn't sink. :)

I've discovered I am not a fan of identifying organisms, so even though travelling to the rainforest and discovering new frogs sounds really cool, I've come to terms that being a biologist is not something I want to be. Also, I'm still not a fan of FL weather. During one of my first couple blogs I complained about the heat and several months later it is still 83⁰F- in December! At one point I figured I'll just limit myself to working in a lab...

...however, the most important thing I learned from this lab is that I do NOT want to limit myself! This lab gave me a sense of direction. Looking back at other courses I should've realized it sooner but it seems I always have a tendency to choose pollution when I get to pick my own topic, whether it be finding a possible correlation between carbon monoxide and cancer for my GIS project or the environmental effects of cat litter for my ENC1101 research paper. Further, to me the statement "I want to be scientist (of any caliber)" always sounded like a crazy proclamation such as wanting to be a movie star like Johnny Depp, or a best-selling author like Dean Koontz, or an architect like Gaudi - I think you get my point: it sounded like a one in a million chance. However, through my project as well as the incredible encouragement of Dr. Woodall and some of my classmates, I have the courage to "shout" it out loud: I WANT TO BE AN ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMIST...just not necessarily in FL. :)

Ryan Dail - Final Reflection

As the semester has come to an end I have been able to confidently answer my scientific question. Coastal fisheries use the information otoliths provide to help set regulations for every fishermen in Florida. Being that this is a relatively new method for gathering information, there is a great amount of information to be learned on new methods of testing otoliths. This lab project has put me in contact with great sources and very nice people. I plan on getting in contact with a fishery biologist I previously met with to keep learning about otoliths and the fish they belong to. I had a great time taking this lab class and learned more than I could have asked for. I really appreciate how much field work Dr. Woodall allowed us to experience. I hope this blog will remain open for updates on everyone's great projects.

Angela - Graphs

Even though I will be continuing my plastic research, I wanted to share the results in regards to the plastic I found on Florida's beaches. As you can see on the map to the right, I did find more pieces of plastic on the East coast; however, my classmate Seaira did ask if I knew whether the beaches had garbage receptacles and I must admit I did not consider finding a correlation between garbage bins and amount of garbage on the beach. In the future, I will make note of amount, size, and type of garbage bins plus distance to the high tide line.

 Ocean Plastic, in the graph below, pertains to pieces with biogenous materials or living organisms.

Please note: the white count may have a degree of error due to some white test fragments looking similar to plastic. Further, I only included colors that had a presence of a minimum of 10 pieces at one beach; colors missing from this graph include magenta, purple, gray, and black.

 With the exception of Marineland, which only had one piece of plastic, over 50% of the plastic found along the high tide line was composed of pieces less than 3cm, identified in the red hues in the graph below. The small fragments may be due to vehicles driving on the beach and crushing the pieces or the sun and waves deteriorating and breaking plastic debris.

Final Highlights by Jeffrey

So, Is there tidal energy potential? Can this energy be harnessed to provide a renewable source of electricity? Does Ponce Inlet have tidal energy potential?

These questions will have to wait. First we had to design and build an unmanned device that would collect data. Then test the apparatus in a controlled environment. What we came up with was a device that would house an accelerometer; an accelerometer measures angular displacement (degrees of tilt) and gravitation pull in three axes. Our design incorporated buoyancy rather than spring tension. 

original design

Our prototype was constructed using schedule 40 PVC pipe. It was designed to be modified depending on the surroundings; it can float or sit on the bottom. Deanna named it the CMD (current measuring device). 

We would use a Hach 950 Flowmeter to record the velocity of water and then compare the collected data from the accelerometer. We correlated the degrees of tilt to the velocity.

My questions remain unanswered because more research is needed. De and I plan on seeing this project to the end; utilizing the CMD to collect data for NASA. 

I really enjoyed this lab and all the young scientist that I had the honor of learning with. 

A look into GIS maps- Seaira

I wanted to post a map I made using GIS software. GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems.This is a test to not only see if my link works, but also I would like feedback on how easy the map is to read. I made the map using images above the Indian River Lagoon so I could easily locate and tag my sample sites. If you view the map and locate the "push pins" or the sample sites it should include the water testing data I recorded.
GIS Sample Site Map

Just a screenshot instead, the link does not work.

Angela - Playing Detective

Even though I'm not a fan of identifying invertebrates, while cataloging the plastic pieces I collected for my project pertaining to plastic on Florida's beaches, I love coming across anything that has letters on it and attempting to figure out what it is, who made it, and/or where it came from. In addition to my bottle cap from Haiti, I've come across several items, such as part of a yellow MercaSID container and a bottle cap from ISM Group, that are manufactured in the Dominican Republic, as well as countries located along the shores of South America.

 

Ocean plastic doesn't just float on the surface but within the water column, thus both surface currents and possibly deep ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream could be moving plastic around our ocean. Currently I do not have the means to figure out if currents brought the foreign manufactured items to our shores or if specialty stores near each beach sell the products.

If you'd like to help me play detective, I'm still trying to figure out where the following bottle cap is from:

Best guess so far, by a friend of mine, has been "Chet, Pour the Champagne" :).