The Day of Group 4 Science

Alright Guys! Well done on a successful day of ocean-related science last saturday. I'm just going to outline what we did for the blog's sake. I think it's important to state that we invested a good 7 hours from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm with a 1 hour lunch break.

On saturday, Group Amerispainada biked to nearby Witty's Beach to collect different species of seaweeds. As well as bull kelp (our primary focus), we also wanted to collect red, brown, and green seaweeds. Some of it we collected off the sand as it was lowtide, and some of it we took off the rocks on the shoreline.

The species we took were:

Bull Kelp (Nereocystis) -brown seaweed

Rockweed (Fucus) -brown seaweed

Microcladia borealis -red seaweed

Turkish Towel (Chondracanthus) -red seaweed

Sea Lettuce (Ulva) -green seaweed

We found some new growth Bull Kelps along the shoreline, but to retrieve the samples we got that were multiple meters long, Alex and I stripped and took the plunge to retrieve them (a bit of commitment and self-motivation there eh?). On the first try, the kelp broke along the stipe, so to retrieve the second one, I dove under and pulled up the holdfast so as to obtain the entire organism.

When we came back, we placed a sample of each of the seaweeds listed above into beakers. Then, we placed them individually over a Bunsen Burner to see how different Divisions (Phyllums) of seaweed reacted to extreme heat and observed their physical changes. I will post the observations in a separate post.

A successful day of traveling, field work, hands-on (of full-body-on) work, and experimentation, my fellow scientists.