Robin Kelly, CUR.... Concrete Oyster Mats

Hello Everyone,
I am Robin and I am a CUR (continuing undergraduate researcher) I have been working on the cost effectiveness of concrete based oyster mats vs plastic based oyster mats. I have demonstrated the cost effectiveness in the construction of the two mats in my earlier work and now I hope to show that they are just as effective in the water collecting spat.

Much thanks to Dr. Woodall and Annie Roddenberry for their knowledge and wisdom of research set up, oysters, and technology. The research has and is moving along with great data to record.






I want to tell everyone how much fun this is to me as well as a learning experience that will carry over into my new career. Personally for me watching something grow from something you designed could not be more satisfying.

Mason Sylvester: Man Myth Legend

Hi, my name is Mason and I am sorry that this is late. I have been caught up in my work schedule and my new school schedule. Some things you probably want to know about me is that I am an Eagle Scout and have been in scouting since I have been in kindergarten. Even after I became an Eagle Scout I have still been in scouting helping younger kids achieve their goals of becoming an Eagle Scout or just learning about the outdoors. Ever since I started in scouting I have been fascinated with the outdoors and all its glory. I have always tried to make every camp out just so that I could be outdoors for an extended period of time. I love everything that is outside and dirty. I have decided to do my research on pollution of worms and how it impacts the environment. I have made this choice because I recently seen the Godzilla movie from 1998 and from the beginning the main character is researching worms and I thought why not and did some research on it. Hopefully I can find out if certain pesticides impact worms and their beneficial output.

Brent Meister-CUR: An interesting life

           

Eagle scout banquet

my friends and I

Hello everyone. I am sorry this is so late but work has been really busy. As you know from class my name is Brent Meister and like i mentioned in class, my research is on noise pollution in the Indian River Lagoon. First, here is a little bit about myself. To start I am an eagle scout in the Boy Scouts of America with many years experience and not to mention I am wilderness first aid trained.Through scouting I meet a lot of interesting people who have influenced my decisions in my life. The most important of which is Chad Truxall From the Marine Discovery Center in New Smyrna. We have become very good friends over the years, occasionally go surfing together in the morning, but he has done nothing but strengthen my love for the sea. I also have a lot of native friends who have taught me to respect the land as well as traveling and performing with them, which is tons of fun. I am planning on continuing my research in marine noise pollution because you don't really see anything in this area about it. We constantly travel over bridges, use boats, and are constantly building new things around your water ways. My goal, through my research, is to find our just how much noise we are putting into our water ways and how it is affecting the ecosystem and the animals that live in it.

one of my sound samples

Cathy CUR, Intro/Things I do not think you know, but should

Hello Everyone!!!

My name is Cathy for those of you who do not know, and I am a counting undergraduate researcher at Daytona State College. My current research project is on plastic in the Indian River Lagoon(IRL). When I originally took Dr. Woodall's oceanography class way back when my research was on copper levels in the Tomoka River. I have always been fascinated by the water ways of Florida specifically South Florida, ever scene I was a small child. I am originally from Boynton Beach, which is about three hours south of Daytona Beach. My husband and I relocated to the Daytona Beach area about a year and half ago. We moved this way because my husband, Fawaaz, is a Ph.D student at Embry Riddle, in Human Factors.

Plastic Microbeads

Plastic Pollution is a growing problem not just in our area, but across the globe. We live in a country that tends to live a fast pace, single use lifestyle. Meaning we tend not reuse items (ex: paper plates, straws, plastic bags) because that would require us to spend more time washing items and/or recycling. Another area of plastic pollution is mircobeads. Microbeads can be found in most of the personal care products that are on the market. The beads are used as a scrubbing agent in these items. Now before plastic was wildly used, soap companies used to use sand, salt, or rocks as the scrubbing agent. They stopped this practice because plastic is so cheap and easy to come by. Some companies have stopped the use of the plastic beads and gone back to their old ways. Which is a wounderful thing!!!

Some products that contain Microbeads

Why do we care about these microscopic beads we care because they are effecting our health. These plastic microbeads are on average less than 1mm in size. When we wash our face or brush our teeth with these product, we are rising the beads down our drains, which leads them into the swearer system and untimely out to the ocean. Our water treatment facility do not filter out these beads because of their size. Once the beads enter the ocean they deposit on the ocean floor, and bottom feeding fish eat the beads thinking they are food. Then the food chain comes into play and a bigger fish eats the little fish and we  as the top of this food chain eat the fish. If you do not know plastic is manufactured using chemicals that for the most part are untested or harmful to humans.

If you would like more information about mircobeads this website has been a great help in my understanding of the beads and the growing problem.

JODY'S/INTRO/FOR/OCE2905

Ever since my first deep sea fishing experience with my father and a couple of his salty dog friends at the age of 7, have I been fascinated with everything ocean. I have never forgotten the experiences of that day. Being the late 1960s well before loran (long range navigation) or gps, these guys where able to, using only a watch, tachometer, and compass find a reef marked by only a black buoy the size of a 5 gallon bucket 18 miles off shore. Well outside the visual range of the coast, not a easy feat considering wind, current and wave conditions, dynamics that could only be factored in by what is called dead reckoning. I'm still astonished by how in tune with their environment these men where and how well they were at it, we where within visual range of that buoy within 5 minutes of when they said start looking for it, even after a two and a half hour voyage.
My recollection of the Atlantic ocean around this part of Florida back then was a far cry from the one we see today because of mans negative impact on it. Not only was there considerably more visible life in the sea back then on the surface like flying fish, sea turtles, manta rays, porpoises, and whales. (as well as no plastic.) But one very rarely returned without anything in the cooler, as far as catch, like one so often will now.
This is one of the many reasons why I have a sense of duty for the Earth and its oceans which was the #1 reason for me selecting the EST program so that through this degree I might be given a chance to make a positive impact on the environment. I feel man has become out of sync with his environment and it is my goal to personally get back in tune with it. 

Intro - Samantha Edel

        We're just a conceited naked ape, but in our minds we're some divine legend and we see ourselves as some sort of god, seeing we can decide what will live and what will die, what will be saved and what will be destroyed, but honestly we're just a bunch of primates out of control.”
- Captain Paul Watson

             Florida has always been my dream.  There was not a year my family missed the beautiful sunshine state or the magical world of Disney or what was always my favorite, SeaWorld.  Ever since I can remember I was fascinated by the marine life I saw right before my eyes jumping through rings and splashing around with that grin on their face.  Lights flashing and trainers whistling, it seemed like the most amazing job in the world. 

                 However, what I failed to realize until my later years was that a dolphins’ smile is nature’s greatest deception.   No aquarium no tank, however spacious it may be can begin to duplicate the conditions of the sea. With this knowledge I soon began to do more research and more until finally, I became outraged.  Four years later and with a lot more knowledge I continue to study ways that we as humans effect the Earth, continental and oceanic as well as the organisms surrounding.  I would like to attain a degree in Marine Science and Geology to therefore continue research and educate others on the extreme harm humans contribute to their only form of life as we know.

Angela, CUR - The Goldilocks of Trash Collection

My name is Angela Boney and as you can see from my original introductory post, I took the OCE1001 Lab during the fall 2013 semester. Throughout this semester I plan to read your posts and hope to provide some useful feedback. My individual research project pertained to plastic debris found on Florida's beaches - since then, the effects of trash (especially plastic) in bodies of water has become a small obsession.

After completing my AA at Daytona State College, I moved to Oregon this summer, and in and around hiking, gardening, and home renovations, I've been looking for the ideal long-term floating garbage research spot: one not too far away, safe to research on my own, and the right kind of trash.

Weeding in Oregon

I specifically mention "floating" because during a garbage collection event I participated in at Alton Baker Park (12 minutes from my house) we spent our time going through homeless people's dens along the Willamette River and were told to never collect along this route on our own. The only thing we found in the water was a bag - filled with beer bottles - tethered to a tree. So, based on my criteria, the site was close enough but not the type of trash I'm looking for and potentially dangerous on my own.

McKenzie River: 1st time I've had to wear a life vest while
collecting trash.

On another day, I participated in the McKenzie Watershed Council's annual river clean up. After driving 40 minutes I knew the site along the McKenzie River was too far gas budget wise, but due to strong currents and slippery rocks it also turned out to be too dangerous on my own, however it had the ideal type of trash: Styrofoam cups, plastic utensils, straws, broken pieces of plastic, fishing bobbers and tons of fishing line - all items that could wash down river and eventually into the ocean.

Beach in Florence, OR

As my list of imperfect river trash collection sites has been growing longer while I'm looking for the one that is just right, I did of course drive the hour and twenty minutes to the closest beach (which a true Oregonian calls a coast). Other than one lonely plastic food storage container rolling along with the wind, Florence's beach is rather a graveyard for washed ashore logs than a trash collection site.

In addition to finding the ideal research site, eventually gaining employment, and continuing home renovations, I'm also biding my time until I qualify for in-state tuition at University of Oregon. I'm debating between the Chemistry and the General Science program, the latter would allow me to take a myriad of courses in Biology, Chemistry, as well as ones pertaining to the Environment. 

Robin...CUR

Oyster Mat: Part Two of Cost Effective

Continuing research:

 “What do I want this experiment to show?” This experiment is the second part to the “Cost Effective of Plastic Base Oyster Mats vs Concrete Base Oyster Mats”. So therefore part two is necessary to show if it is “effective in attracting oyster spat” in order to see if it will be productive or nonproductive.  So in order for it to really be cost effective, it must be productive. Also we will need to see if nature is going to except or reject the material being used.

The second part of this project is to see whether or not spat will except or reject the concrete base mat and if the numbers are greater than or equal to the plastic based mat. The number of spat and design set-up of the experiment statistical done should give us a final conclusion in just how effective the CBM is, which is also the final conclusion of how cost effective it really is.

The initial design of deployment was setup with the concrete base mats next to the plastic base mats. Six of each, two rows of three and placed beside each other. Approximately 7ft from water line at low tide. After further consultation with Dr. Debra Woodall and Annie Roddenberry, it was decided that this setup will not do, for statistical research, nor adequate spat attachment do to intertidal waters of the estuary project site.

Take two: The second set-up design of mat deployment experiment was based on a more statistical mathematical concept and nonrandom sampling method.

In the take two set up design the mats are alternated, plastic base, concrete based, and so-on with a total length of 22ft and 3inch. There is approximately 9inch in between each mat and from center of each mat to the water line (at low tide) is 24inch, at high tide the water depth level is approximately 3.5ft (1.0668m) over the mats and roughly 6 ¼ hours in between tidal change. Therefore the water level hits all mats at the same time at high tide , total water coverage at the same time and leaves them at the same time at low tide. (June 2, 2015)

 

Two weeks form second design set-up, June 16, 2015, was the first count, and the results show promise, there will be a count one month thereafter for five consecutive months. I will also be looking at things such as salinity (ppt), DO (mg/L), wind direction, air temperature, water temperature, new recruitment, shifting settlement, other species (diversity) and will record any observations I feel necessary and/or interesting for further research.

 

Robin, UR.. Oyster Mats

Hello Everyone,
Update on the natural based oyster mats. First let me remind you of the scientific question.

Is there a cost effective method of creating a natural oyster mat  vs  a plastic oyster mat?
                                                                                       

           So it was broke down into two parts:                     Method & Time  +  Material & Cost

BUT: Before I get into the results let me explain why we should care !

What is Known about oysters

They filter our water naturally, provide habitat & food for other marine life, add stability to our coastal areas and provide food for us and jobs in the fishery industry. 85% of the oyster reefs are gone and is the most severely effected marine ecosystem in the world.

Oysters in their natural environment

and the natural base solution

"So the results of my findings"

While the numbers show promise, the effectiveness is still a work in progress, I will continue  my research through the summer by deploying them and watching for development of attachment of spat. Log any and all growth patterns as well as salinity, water temperature and anything else that might be of significance. 

Amanda Adams, UR, The results are in!

Hello fellow colleagues, as I mentioned I am Amanda in the IMES program here at Daytona State. I did a fun IRP this semester on nutrients in the Central Park waters near my home. My scientific question is: Out of Cu²⁺, TIN, and PO^3-₄ which has the highest concentration in the waters of Central Park near my house? Also, do these levels exceed what the EPA deems safe?

To answer this question I had to take a little journey through the waters of Central Park to find out. 

I set out in a kayak with my field book, 250 and 500 mL amber-colored Nalgene H₂O sample bottles, my phone for Lat/Long coordinates, and a cooler to keep my samples cold. After geotagging each sample site and obtaining my grab samples, I transported them to the lab where I tested all 5 samples for the above mentioned nutrients. I used the Hach DR/890 Colorimeter: method #8026 for Cu²⁺, method #10021 for TIN, and method #8048 for Orthophosphate. 

What the EPA deems as safe levels for the nutrients that I was testing are:

§  Cu²⁺     1.3 mg/L

§  TIN       0.52 mg/L

§  PO_3-4    0.01 mg/L

My levels compared to the EPA’s are as follows:

	Cu ²⁺	TIN	PO₄³ˉ
EPA	1.3	0.52	0.01
Central Park	0.0	0.1	0.02
site 2	0.0	0.1	0.02
site 3	0.0	0.0	0.0
site 4	0.0	0.3	0.0
site 5	0.0	0.0	0.0
*I couldn't get my graph to drop in here.

Answering my SQ: Out of Cu²⁺, TIN, and PO^3-₄, the only constituents that had high levels were TIN and PO^3-₄. PO^3-₄ was the only constituent that exceeded EPA standards at two of my sample sites; therefore it would seem that PO^3-₄ is the limiting nutrient in the lakes nearest my house.

If I had the opportunity to do it over again I absolutely would! The only modifications I would make would be:

§  Sample deeper than grab samples

§  Sample before/after rain to compare

§  Seasonal sampling (spring/summer/fall/winter) to see if lake turnover has an effect on nutrient concentration.

Thank you for following my research. This was enlightening and fun. I'm learning that science can be exciting and I can hardly wait to see what will unfold in the future.

T Singleton U.R. Tomoka Landfill and marshes with cattle exceed EPA guidelines!

The EPA’s Guideline for Orthophosphate is : 0.01 mg/L

and this is what I found!

 

 

Conclusion

According to these findings, both the areas of the cow pastures and landfill are over the EPA guidelines. However the cow pasture shows higher phosphate levels than the landfill.

According to Mark Vanheden of St Johns River Water Management District, one cannot do a “gotcha type” of water sampling and blame the landfill for anything. Any polluter can only be judged based on “what leaves their property.”  Well what leaves the landfill's property indicates a level of phosphate that is 0.02 mg/L over the EPA's guideline!  

 

Errors

Unfamiliarity of the locations and terrain complicated gathering field samples and data.

Due to time constraints, collected samples were taken back to the lab and frozen to be analyzed later.
Nutrient levels are influenced by agriculture and rain.
Future Research (updated since final presentation) what would I change?
The original report said for future testing to: “Sample only on non-cattle accessible areas".
This statement was not clear because everyone took this as these high phosphate levels should be disregard completely. Not at all! This matter would be another project in itself. Pollution from cow pastures could be monitored.  The data shows that the cattle accessible areas are a larger contributor to the overall water pollution when compared to the landfill.     

In the presentation, it was mentioned to “Take all the samples on the same day & without rain for 48 hours.”  Comments made after the project pointed out the importance of future research regarding the relationship between rain and no rain days.  

Also, including a larger sample size over a longer period of time for statistical analysis would expand these findings.

The model sampling method could be applied to other projects if errors are accounted for.

Other chemicals should be investigated because this project only checked for one thing.