Day 6 @ MBL
november 16, 2019
Last night after dinner, several of us went back to the lab to meet up with Dr. Patel and one of his graduate students, Kyle DeMarr to view Dr. Patel's butterflies. He explained a lot about mimicry in butterflies and moths, which connected to what we learned earlier in the week about some other marine animals like cuttlefish. Kyle then offered to let us look at the scales on some butterfly wings using a very high magnification microscope. This was amazing, as we were able to see different colors and structures that weren't visible before under lower magnification. He talked with us about his research and how it connects to so many other big research questions.
This morning, we awoke to a beautiful but cold and windy last day @ MBL. We were treated with a final lecture from Dr. Lisa Abbo, the resident Veterinarian here at MBL. She talked about her work with various marine organisms and how she takes care of them. She showed us some of the methods she uses to rehabilitate fish and cephalopods in order to save their lives. We then went into the lab to observe various features on a group of locally found Oyster toadfish. We were helping screen them for signs of injury or infection that Dr. Abbo would then need to treat.
We checked the water quality of our fish tanks one last time and prepared graphs of our data to look for patterns over the course of the week.
After lunch, we all assembled one last time for our group presentations, which were really interesting and interactive. Our knowledge was tested through various Kahoot quizzes, and some groups presented more in-depth research on topics such as coral bleaching and mechanisms of cnidarian nematocyst toxins. We also shared our fish tank data and compared our results, noting a common trend of ammonia levels decreasing as nitrate levels increased by the end of the week (which is good news for the hermit crabs, fish and anemones in our tanks!).
All in all, this has been an absolutely incredible learning experience! We can't wait to get back and share even more about all the amazing things we learned and the inspiring people (and organisms!) we met along the way.
This morning, we awoke to a beautiful but cold and windy last day @ MBL. We were treated with a final lecture from Dr. Lisa Abbo, the resident Veterinarian here at MBL. She talked about her work with various marine organisms and how she takes care of them. She showed us some of the methods she uses to rehabilitate fish and cephalopods in order to save their lives. We then went into the lab to observe various features on a group of locally found Oyster toadfish. We were helping screen them for signs of injury or infection that Dr. Abbo would then need to treat.
We checked the water quality of our fish tanks one last time and prepared graphs of our data to look for patterns over the course of the week.
After lunch, we all assembled one last time for our group presentations, which were really interesting and interactive. Our knowledge was tested through various Kahoot quizzes, and some groups presented more in-depth research on topics such as coral bleaching and mechanisms of cnidarian nematocyst toxins. We also shared our fish tank data and compared our results, noting a common trend of ammonia levels decreasing as nitrate levels increased by the end of the week (which is good news for the hermit crabs, fish and anemones in our tanks!).
All in all, this has been an absolutely incredible learning experience! We can't wait to get back and share even more about all the amazing things we learned and the inspiring people (and organisms!) we met along the way.