USFSP Week- Kayley McDowell

    I really enjoyed this week in St. Pete. It was probably my second favorite week of this class so far. We learned about the open ocean, plankton, deep sea creatures and their adaptations, and marine biodiversity. On Tuesday of this week we took a research vessel named Weatherbird II out in the ocean to collect samples and data. I think the coolest thing I saw personally was the octopus we collected. I also learned and practiced new collecting techniques that are used on research vessels. We used multiple forms of nets to collect different size organisms from plankton to crabs and sea urchins. We also collected water samples from the surface and deep down in the water. We then used this data and past years to do a project/presentation. My group presented on Marine Biodiversity in Invertebrates nearshore the Tampa Bay. We used 3 years to compare the diversity of invertebrate species. This was super stressful as it was my first time doing a scientific presentation and we were only given 2 days to compete it. But, we did it and it wasn't as bad as I thought and it was actually a good learning experience. 

    This week we also got to do some activities at The Florida Aquarium for a class assignment. I really enjoyed this day and my favorite part was petting the stingrays. The other days of the week were used to work on our presentations and class lectures. We learned about deep and open ocean research, diversity, and plankton. We also got to do some fun activities where we looked at deep sea creatures collected in jars and pretended to be deep sea bioluminescent plankton.