Today’s blog by Maddy and Estevan!

This morning, Caroline came to talk to us about colleges! Caroline is the director of the Salish Sea program, and coordinates all of our activities. She also buys us lots of ice cream, which we appreciate greatly. Although it can seem pretty daunting, Caroline helped demystify the admissions process and answer many of the questions we had. She outlined how to choose your college, what they look for in an applicant, scholarships, essays, and much more. She gave us tips and tricks on how to write essays, even giving us some practice prompts to complete. This exercise really allowed us to be more introspective, and see what aspects of ourselves we want to show in essays.

Although there are so many things to consider when looking for colleges, she emphasized that the most important part is keeping your interests and loves in mind.

Following Caroline’s talk, we went straight to the lab, where we processed the eelgrass samples we collected yesterday. Morgan showed us how to rinse the eelgrass in freshwater, place it onto the clear sheets and label it with the necessary information. Meanwhile, Maddy began to scan the transparencies and turn them into images that can be used later for a variety of purposes, such as disease prevalence surveys. Although it was tedious, these data are contributing to a yearly monitoring of eelgrass health at Fourth of July Bay (and it’s really helpful to Maddy’s project)! 

After lunch, we returned to the lab yet again. This time, Derek talked to us about statistics, and the various ways for us to present the data we have. It was really informative and a little mind boggling to see all of the programs and possibilities! We then brought all of this newfound information into project development time. We’re all working really hard in order to finish our projects before the week ends!

Finally, as the day came to a close, we met with our lovely guest Dr. Billie Swalla. She studies evolutionary biology, genomes, embryos, and a lot of other really cool stuff, particularly with marine invertebrates. She is also passionate about diversifying science and making it more accessible to everyone! Her enthusiasm was infectious, and we learned so much about little creatures most of us have never heard of.

A highlight of her presentation was a video of an Ascidian embryo developing; it was fascinating to watch and hear her explain each stage of development! Lastly, we tied up the night by unveiling our tie dye t-shirts. The colors and patterns are each so unique and beautiful, almost like a reflection of ourselves. 

Written by Elliott Jones, Sonja Larson and Colette Bennette

Sleeping in was a relief. We needed that, as we do now, while we write this. Anyways, the morning went smoothly and we eventually made our way to the 4th of July Beach over on the South end of the island to perform some eelgrass surveys, instructed by Morgan.

Due to the changes brought on by climate change many organisms are being affected by epidemics and such, similar to our own. Eelgrass is one of these organisms, and being the foundation of an entire ecosystem, as we learned today, it’s extremely important we monitor these changes.

From the parking lot on the hill we trekked down to the beach where we observed a local salt marsh and the expansive array of birds that rely on it. We then headed out far down the beach, trudging through the rocks, mud, and algae. 

When we reached the site, we set out transects at different depths to start recording the population of eelgrass shoots in our quadrats, all the while avoiding interrupting the rambunctious activities of the seagulls.

Legs cramping and boots full of water, we finally finished and headed up to the shore to eat our packed lunches, before heading into the mossy and overgrown forest on the way back to the van.                         

Once we got back from the field and laid around the dorms for a bit, we got to do something fun…tie dying!! We all had picked out our shirt sizes the day before so we were ready to start today (well yesterday but shhh) We all grabbed our shirts and got to work on coloring the shirts and setting up what designs we would have on our shirts. Even though we all had the same materials, each and every shirt turned out different. Most of the peers here did spiral designs while others just scrunched up our shirts and poured some color on it. 

Once we got done, all of our hands were covered with dye. Some of our hands were solid colors like green, orange and blue. Today, our hands are still dyed, so if you see us with stained hands, now you know why. Hopefully the dye will wash off soon but until then, we’ll stay colorful. 

After eating way too much spaghetti, we all settled down for a couple hours of free time. Dustin and Estevan made their way down to a nearby beach to go swimming, while others took the time to work on their independent projects. 

Since we had finally gotten our hands on some embroidery thread, a bunch of us sat down around the dining table and taught each other how to make friendship bracelets. Now we are all pro bracelet makers. 

This is the bracelet Elliott made. Aren’t you jealous of its beauty? – Photo taken by Sonja

Putting on warm jackets and sweatpants, and made our way down to the town docks. Using a car jump starter and a couple of lights, we did some night-lighting in the water. Putting the light in the water and using the jump starter to power it, we were able to illuminate the nearby ocean and reveal what seemed to be a whole new world of life. The water was full of floating particles and the occasional jellyfish and shrimp. We laid down on the docks and spent just over an hour staring into the water. It was super cool to see all of the larvae, fish, and polychaetes in the water.

Once we returned to the dorms, we were all very tired from the day, but still very excited from doing the night-lighting at the docks. After some late night ice cream and talking about what we would do the next day, we all headed to bed to get enough rest for the next day. See you tomorrow (oh wait today haha we posted the blog late).