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”
Aristotle once theorized that living creatures could arise from nonliving matter and that this process was common. He hypothesized that maggots could arise from dead flesh and fleas come from dust. According to Aristotle, the generation of things like sea shells varies with the sea bed. Slime gave rise to oysters, sand to scallops, and …
When I think back to when I decided to become a marine biologist, I fondly remember my high school marine science teacher. She was a biologist, just getting out of school and looking for a place to grow for a while. She took on this class and tried so hard to make it wonderful and …
Oysters. What’s the first thing you think of when you think of oysters? Pearls? Food? Slimy and gross? That time you cut your foot on one when you were a kid playing in the bay and how much it hurt when your grandmother poured all of the rubbing alcohol in the world on it? That …
When going outside, do you ever take a moment to look around and see all the amazing plants and animals that inhabit your local area? While you can (and should) take some time to discover your own backyard wherever you are, we wanted to take a moment to show you just how amazing the area …
For the past 3 months I have been working on an educator certification through National Geographic. Starting with the basics I learned about this certification through a classmate of mine who was doing some work in informal education and thought it would be a fun way for me to learn how to incorporate some new …
Have you ever had a student ask you why what they were learning mattered to them? Or if they would ever use this in their lives? I feel like I used to get this question all the time. I still do sometimes when what we are learning is difficult to relate to my students on …