It’s Shark Week! The most jaw-some time of the year! Discovery Channel has been premiering shark themed content every year for nearly 35 years, and we have very mixed feelings about it. While there are some gems on Discovery Channel and it brings many people closer to an appreciation and love of the ocean and …
I literally can’t sit still to save my life. Every weekend I can’t have even one day to just sit at home. I have to do SOMETHING! So, imagine my frustration with summer vacation. School’s out, nothing to do, so naturally I got another (third, fourth, seventeenth?) job. Now, this job isn’t just hanging out …
Welcome to the Reef Down in Key Largo, about six miles offshore, there lies a reef of beautiful clear water, with many fish flitting around, sea fans waving in the current, and a happy me drifting about. This beautiful place is well known as Molasses Reef.
How It All Started Shark tagging can be highly sensationalized, and most people know the gist of what shark tagging is and a basic idea of why it’s done. Shark Week typically shows at least one show every 2 hours that involves someone tagging a shark for research purposes, giving most people that baseline understanding …
Happy PADI Women Divers Day! Nine years ago, PADI had a simple idea, to encourage more women to get into the dive industry. With such a tight-knit community, divers everywhere planned events and encouraged women all over the world to get into SCUBA diving. In the first eight years, women all over the world put …
What is Shark Awareness Day? Are you aware of sharks? It’s a weird question to ask, I’m sure. Obviously, you’re aware of sharks. They’re around, they star in terrible Sci Fi films, they have their own week, the list goes on and on. Shark Awareness Day isn’t about just knowing sharks exist, it’s about knowing …
The smell of urea is always a weird one. But my lab girls were into it. The poor conference room looked like a massacre but hey, it was all in the name of science! This wasn’t a wholly unusual day at the Oceanography Camp for Girls (OCG), but it was definitely a memorable one. OCG …
When you swim in a swimming pool, have you ever tried to sit directly in the middle of the water? Feet not touching the bottom, head not reaching the surface? Well, there’s a whole group of organisms that must live like that every day of their lives! This is called being neutrally buoyant. Buoyancy is …
As you may remember, I have a tank in my classroom that has animals from Sarasota Bay to showcase the diversity and importance of estuaries in my marine science class. I wanted to introduce my current residents of the tank to you all! So, without further ado…. Meet the Tank!
In the beautiful coastal city of Sarasota, Florida, there’s an unwelcome visitor that occasionally sweeps across the emerald waters of the Gulf of Mexico: Red Tide. Known scientifically as Karenia brevis, these microorganisms are single-celled, naturally occurring algae. However, when they bloom in unusually high concentrations, they can have devastating impacts on marine life and …
Read more “The Rising Tide: Understanding Red Tide Algal Blooms in Sarasota, FL”