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" :).

Angela-Mistakes to Avoid

As my search for plastic on Florida's beaches comes to an end (for the semester), I can definitely confirm that, to my surprise, some of our beaches are littered with plastic fragments ranging in size smaller than 1cm to larger than 10cm. Additionally, the east coast wins the plastic content contest with four and half two-quart jars filled versus not even a quarter of a jar of plastic found on the west coast. 

Originally I thought it was a good idea to collect all my plastic and then go over my findings, however, it is taking me about three to four hours to catalog the content of each jar. This is my current separation method:

- "Ocean Plastic" & "Unsure", then

- "Small Fragments", "Large Fragments", and "Identifiable Pieces" (which are further broken down into bottle caps, pen caps, straws, etc), then

- color, then

- finally separate by sizes: less than 1cm, 1-2cm, 2-3cm, 3-5cm, 5-10cm, and 10cm or more

If anyone else ever wants to repeat or do similar research the following are my recommendations:

- If you decide to have categories, e.g. "Ocean Plastic", "Unsure", separate the pieces into different jars as you are finding them on the beach. Initially I only separated resin pellets from the rest of the contents and even added sediment to the jars for microbead inspection; however, most of my jars have over 200 pieces that I am now examining and separating one by one.

- To weigh my plastic I made aluminum foil "beakers" that I wasn't quite content with and ended up getting an aluminum camping mug (which I immerse in boiling water after each jar of plastic). However, all the weighing I'm doing is significantly impacted by sediment sticking to the plastic. I would recommend to let it air out for a week in order to shake off as much dry sediment as possible in order to get more accurate measurements. I didn't want to rinse my plastic pieces since I plan on doing additional experiments on them.

- Turns out white shell pieces can look an awful lot like plastic. White pieces are taking me an extra long time since I am trying to make 100% sure I'm not mistaking shell for plastic (can't do a float test since I don't want to wash away any chemicals off the actual plastic pieces).

- If you are putting everything in one jar, examine and separate the content as soon as possible. Some of the biogenous material, the identifier I'm using for ocean plastic, has decomposed or unattached from the plastic, thus some of my pieces that could have been identified as ocean plastic are probably ending up in the "Unsure" pile.

Collecting Water Samples- Seaira

Today I went to two sites in the Indian River Lagoon to collect water samples for analysis in the lab tomorrow. While I did not find any "true" seagrass beds, I did stumble upon a large amount of Widgeon Grass,Ruppia maritima. This species is a seagrass, however it differs because it does not grow well in environments with elevated saline levels.

Widgeon Grass prefers saline levels of less than 25ppt, and is typically found in shallow waters. This particular species is the only species that pollinates with hydrophobic (water-fearing) pollen that floats across the waters surface.

 The locations of my samplings included Parrish Park in Titusville, and Scottsmoor Landing in Mims. I chose these locations because the have access to large open portions of the lagoon. I also wanted compare nutrient levels in these sites with previous ones because they are in close proximity to agricultural, residential, and industrial sites. I am curious to see if my results will show that there could be sources of runoff pollution in the area. 
While I was sampling I also noticed that there was a large amount of white foam at the shoreline and dock area at Scottsmoor Landing.

When I got home I decided to do some research about what the sea foam was exactly, and why there was so much of it in the area. I discovered that sea foam is made up of organic matter including dissolved salts, proteins, and you guessed it dead algae. I read on the NOAA website that sea foam can become thick and copious during times of algae blooms. I found this very interesting, and I wonder if my testing in the lab will support this theory of present algae blooms due to nutrient runoff.