Blog credits: Cynthia and Matthew
Our day started with a 7:30 wake-up and a make-your-own breakfast. At 9:30, we went to the art room and had a fascinating lesson about different kinds of algae with Dr. Becca Guenther. Dr. Guenther currently works in the Sea Star Lab at FHL. She did her PhD on calcified coralline algae. After the lesson, we used cyanotype paper and laid different types of algae to make art.
After you layer the algae to your heart’s desire, you put a glass over the paper and leave it to soak in the sun for 5-10 minutes! In the image, you can see different colors of paper; this is because over time the paper goes from a light blue to a beige color.
Once your paper is done soaking in the sun, you then bring it to a bucket of water to dip in. We had two different buckets of water, one without hydrogen peroxide and one with hydrogen peroxide. The bucket with hydrogen peroxide will make your paper a darker color, and the one without will make your paper lighter. In this image, you can see one of the papers that was dipped in plain water.
Here you can see the final result of the art project. These papers were dipped in hydrogen peroxide, which is why this paper is much darker than the paper above.
After our art project, we hopped in the vans and went to Mount. Grant, where we met Shauna Barrows, who explained the freshwater reserve of Trout Lake and how it provided water for the town of Friday Harbor. We learned that Mount. Grant is the highest accessible point for the public! She also explained how important land conservation is to this island, as runoff of fresh water can deplete the supply for the town immensely, which will deeply impact the people living on the island. That is why the land bank is so important, and the conservation work they do. After this interesting lesson, we went back to the art room for project time, where we could ask Ami and Adam any questions we had. Today we finalized ideas for our projects, and now we are starting the work on our individual projects! That’s it for now, see you tomorrow!