One of my favorite parts of teaching with the MSC Outreach Program is seeing all the excited faces when I tell students that they get to meet the tidepool animals. It doesn’t matter how much the students knew about the ocean already, they were ready to learn even more. In the past six months, over 1000 Lynn students were able to see the tidepool critters … Continue reading School to Sea AND Sea to School for Lynn Students
For their fourth and final dive day in Cozumel, Mexico, OGL divers took a fast boat and headed to Cozumel’s wild north coast. There they encountered not only the strong swells and high currents that the north coast is famous for, but also a completely different fauna and reef structure than is typically seen by recreational divers in the more placid waters to the south. … Continue reading Dispatch from the field – OGL expedition to Cozumel, Part 4
On the third day of the Cozumel Expedition, OGL divers explored two new dive sites on deep walls. Moderate currents gently guided the divers past vast expanses of coral and sponge. Highlights from the dive included green moray eels (Gymnothorax funebris), a massive Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus)with alarge school of bluestiped grunt (Haemulon sciurus) in tow, Christmas tree worms, (Spirobranchus giganteus) and bearded fireworms, (Hermodice … Continue reading Dispatch from the field – OGL expedition to Cozumel, Part 3
On the second day of OGL’s scouting trip in Mexico, divers explored the breathtaking biodiversity at two locations along Cozumel’s coral reef. Surveys of fish and coral abundance at both sites revealed a variety of corals unparalleled elsewhere in the region. The first dive was on Palencar Reef and took divers through a network of cave-like structures. These revealed four species of black corals and … Continue reading Dispatch from the field – OGL expedition to Cozumel, Part 2
A team of divers from the MSC and the Ocean Genome Legacy are in Cozumel, Mexico this week scoping future research and teaching opportunities for MSC students and scientists. OGL Director, Dr. Dan Distel, is joined by Dive Safety Officer, Liz Magee, undergrad marine biology major, Jaxon Derow, and OGL Board Member, Carol Horvitz. Below are photos from the first day of diving. Continue reading Dispatch from the field – OGL expedition to Cozumel, Part 1
I was cleaning up storm debris in Nahant the other day with some coworkers and other community members, and we came across these bizarre creatures in a mass of algae that had been washed up onto the sidewalk. None of us had seen anything like them before. I am a fan of invertebrate zoology, and my initial thought was that these were peanut worms (phylum … Continue reading Mysterious marine creatures washed up by storm
A few weeks ago, the Three Seas students headed to Lubec, Maine, the easternmost point in the continental United States. Part of their coursework for the Marine Invertebrate Zoology ad Marine Botany course involved the annual Cobscook Bay intertidal scavenger hunt. Students were given 2 hours to find as many invertebrates and algae, then spent the next 4 hours identifying them. The 5 groups collected and identified more … Continue reading The Easternmost Scavenger Hunt!
(Cross-posted from Ocean Genome Legacy News) In the past year, Ocean Genome Legacy (OGL) has been recruiting people from all walks of life to help document and preserve the deep offerings of our oceans. On September 10, you can too! OGL co-hosted Bioblitzes across the country with citizen scientists and future leaders in marine biology. These biodiversity-themed events provide opportunities for folks to explore, identify, … Continue reading Celebrating Biodiversity with Bioblitzes – Coast to Coast
There are three main ways that you get paid as a graduate student, and they can vary semester to semester: 1. You can have your own funding source via a scholarship. 2. You can work as a research assistant on one of your advisor’s funded projects. 3. You can work as a teaching assistant (TA) for a class. I’m currently getting paid by option number … Continue reading I get paid to do this?! Working as a teaching assistant in Panama.
From toddlers to retirees, my motto is that the science bug can bite you at any age, and so its never too early to start getting young scientists out into the field exploring nature! Boston Public Schools teacher Naomi Mulvihill agrees, and that’s why we were both so jazzed to work together this fall to plan a Marine Science Center field trip for Naomi’s first graders from the Sarah … Continue reading First grade gratitude takes the sting out of winter
Between Northeastern Tides 