It has been crazy how early I am getting up on the Island, back home in the states it is usually really hard for me to get up at the crack of dawn. Being on the Island has instilled a sense of excitement in me to wake up early and not miss a thing! This morning started off with waking up before my alarm, and heading down to the Jetty with my fellow students, Kim and Sienna. We caught the morning sunrise with entertainment from the squawking seagulls, to the sting rays jumping out of the water and Ed telling us more of his adventures in life--there always seems to be something that I am getting to see and experience every moment here.
We all get the excitement when Trish and Ed say to be "ready and suited" -this means we get to snorkel! We started the day with getting our new lab assignments of gathering video footage of fish abundance in the coral patches, and were then cut loose to our research. Sounds easy, right?! Well, for some reason It was difficult to accomplish such a simple assignment. It just happened to be windy, which then made it harder to stabilize the go pro footage of the reefs. Kamp and myself were partnered together, and we still had a blast laughing at all the things we probably made harder than it should have been. We took our footage from the go pro's, had a good laugh at our mistakes, and then recorded our high tide footage and were off to our next crash course of "Invertebrate's". I love listening to Trish and Ed lecture, they both have a fascinating and unique way of educating--that makes it fun and easy to learn and ask questions. I've learned so much more than I thought i already "knew", but there are so many talented personalities here that teach me every day I am here...I am so lucky and humbled. We lectured for about and hour and then we "suited" up again for a low tide analysis of the fish abundance. To our surprise, it was MUCH, MUCH, lower than we had anticipated--to where we had to hunch over with our cameras to get the footage of the fish in the corals. It was fun watching us maneuver around the coral in the footage, you could see the thought process of "how to get the camera around the coral". Kamp and I had footage to work with and noticed a huge change in our findings compared to the morning high tide. The class then recorded all of our findings, and combined it all into one database and we created an excel graph with our results. (I'm learning more about Excel than I ever thought I would need to learn) The night ended with us going to a presentation from another group here on the Island called, "Coral Watch". They are an awesome group of Faculty, students, and volunteers who spread the word about the coral reef, and how we can save it from present threatening circumstances, even if we don't live anywhere near the reef they are mainly there to educate people about how we can do our part. We have a bunch of amazing students and teachers who want to help educate, but it is hard to feel like people will want to change if it doesn't directly affect them. Maybe we can make a difference, but everything isn't as glamorous as it sounds with the coral reef systems...it's actually quite sad that something as old and amazing as the reef system could be extinct someday. I love this earth and what it has to offer, hopefully others can appreciate what they have--even if it doesnt affect them directly. THANK YOU! :)
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TiaG'day Mates! My name is Tia Jeppesen. I would love to introduce myself about who I am; where I am from, and also blog about this once in a lifetime experience in the beautiful country of Australia. Archives |