By: Sara, Jaimie, Arielle, Jake—

This morning, we woke up at 7:30 and ate our breakfast before returning to False Bay to collect more earwigs for our final projects that we will present on Thursday.

Once we returned to the dorm, we had time to work on our projects. Some of us were working on graphs and background information, while others were running some trials with the earwigs we collected earlier. After working on our projects for about 1 ½ hours, we had lunch.

After lunch, we departed for the Friday Harbor Labs where we learned about sea urchin and sand dollar fertilization.  Dr. Colette Feehan is an expert on larvae feeding habits and their effect on ocean ecology. Today, Colette and Friday Harbor Laboratories ‘Young Investigator Prize’ winner Beatrice Grauman-Boss were embarking on a new study to learn more about larval predation.

We induced the sea urchins to spawn.

The urchins were not cooperating, it is past their season, so instead, sand dollars were used in their place.

We then placed some eggs and sperm on slides and looked at them under a microscope.

After we all got a chance to look at the microscopes, we walked over to where we had been keeping our invertebrates that we had collected while trawling.

They spent the last several weeks in a wet lab where we could use them to draw or study them. It was time to send them home. We collected our invertebrates and went on a 20 minute hike to a beach near the FH Labs where we released them.

Upon releasing the invertebrates, we kept hiking for another 15 minutes and took time to watch the orca whales passing by the beach.

Soon it was time for the shark necropsy! Last Monday, an 8-foot 6 gill shark washed up on the beach, and Adam Summers’ class will be studying the shark’s morphology.We were lucky to be invited to observe the necropsy too. A few of us were even able to feel the liver of the shark!

Photos by Seth Grant

At 5 PM, we returned to campus and started preparing for dinner with our guests, Drs. Rebecca Guenther and Colette Feehan. For dinner we had quinoa salad, caprese, and roasted chicken.

After we ate, Rebecca, talked to us about ocean acidification, climate change, and her work with coralline algae.

After Rebecca and Colette left, we had more time to work on our projects. When we decided that we were done for the day, we went to bed.