This morning we woke up at 7:30 and had time to wake up, get ready, and eat before heading to the UW Friday Harbor Labs.

We met up with Adam Summers again and got to explore his comparative biomechanics lab and talk to him about his science equipment and experiments.  

Photos by Tom Grauman

He talked to us about his CT scanner and we got to see scans of beetles, piranhas, and a rare deep sea hagfish.

We were also shown his 3D scanner and he showed us a bright yellow yoda head which was a highlight of the trip.

Also, I think the very most exciting moment was when we got to see the 6 gilled shark that had washed up the day before. It stank very badly, but it was also super exciting. Adam and his students are going to dissect and study it next week.

In the late morning, we finally put all of our data together on a spreadsheet so we could all look at our data together. This took us around three hours including some breaks with music and Pokemon. We then hurried back to the dorm in order to surprise Quinn for his birthday.

Quinn is officially 16! Happy birthday dad!! We created a giant card for him and had cupcakes, cookies, brownies, and fresh Skagit Valley blueberries and raspberries.

Photo by Seth Grant

Quinn was pleasantly surprised. Of course, later we had to get back to work, so we headed back to the Spring Street science lab to input more data.

For our free time before dinner, we explored town collecting Pokemon and going to pokestops. Currently, 8 out of the 10 of us have PokemonGo, and it’s becoming quite the addiction. Of course, we are never more interested in Pokemon than science, but it’s good to pass the time and relax.

For dinner, we had chicken kabobs, yellow rice, and cuc salad. Because of a resceduled guest presentation, Seth and Tim drove us to Roche Harbor to get ice cream and watch their nightly routine called Colors. They had a VERY small and VERY loud cannon that scared us all. We checked out all the nice boats and watched the sunset.

It was a very long day—goodnight!

This morning, after getting a 7:45 wakeup call, we got ready and ate breakfast. After breakfast, we headed down to Friday Harbor High School Stem Lab. There, Derek Smith, whom we met earlier in the program, showed us the tools and inventions that he and his students work on and created, such as the 3D printer, virtual reality headset skateboards, & ROV.

Derek was very generous with the equipment and let us play around with our own 3D design for our earwig experiments.

The one that amazed everybody the most was the electric car that his students worked on and mostly completed. Derek told us how proud he was of his students for doing something so amazing with hardly any help. He told us that it is almost 100% ready to be driven. The only problem he has encountered was the brakes. He is very excited to drive it.

Another creation that he had in his class was the Augmented Reality Sandbox. When we first saw it we thought it was just an ordinary sandbox. We were all wrong once he told us what it can do. It can teach people simple earth science concepts—as you manipulate the sand you can see topographical details come out—you can even simulate rainy conditions!— but it can also be there just for fun. When we got a chance to play with it, we couldn’t leave it because it was just so much fun. 

After visiting the Stem Lab, we headed back to our temporary home and we had lunch. During lunch we talked and played games. After lunch, we started to talk about our upcoming projects that we individually are going to do. We also reviewed some of the scientific vocabulary we have learned so far and met to discuss a New York Times article with the provocative title: There Is No Scientific Method.

Later we had exploration time, and some of us used the time to take a quick nap before dinner.

By Indeya and Jake —

We woke up at 6:00 AM for our first dip dip dippity dip.

But that wasn’t until 7:00 AM because it took us a long time to pack up our sleeping stuff and get ready. Quinn accidently dropped his shirt in the water, which was honestly pretty predictable. In a thrilling culinary turn of events, Peder sent a bunch of potatoes out to sea. The recovery of said potatoes, as well as Peder’s attitude on the matter, was thoroughly documented on the camera by Jack.

At 11:05 AM we saw two juvenile harbor seals while exiting the bay, and at 12:55 PM we watched a lot of rhinoceros auklets fishing in the riptide around Clark Point. At 2:00 PM we were a mile from Pelican Beach on Cyprus Island.

We were under sail, so we had time to chat about a variety of subjects. We have come to the conclusion that school doesn’t teach anything right. The conversation got a little heated, so we had to take a moment to silently observe our surroundings.

We sailed for a bit longer and then began rowing as we neared the island. We latched onto a mooring ball, and set up a clothesline for the evening so the boat could move in and away from the shore.

However, the wind and currents came up, so we quickly boarded and rowed around the bend to more stable conditions.

Photo by Chrissy McLean

Jack is currently in the lead in the eating contest between him and Indeya. Tonight we ate mac ‘n cheese with a choice of tuna and/or carrots and/or cucumbers. For dessert, we played a newly introduced game called dip ‘n go, in which we have to sing a designated song while continually passing bowls of apples, graham crackers, and chocolate. We won the game! Whoop whoop! We plan to wake up at 6:00 AM tomorrow, which is just another morning in this long line of early suffering.

By Indeya, Lana, and Quinn—

Today, we awoke at five thirty AM and hopped in the van to the SJI County Park. The reason for this early rising was so that we could reach the beach at low tide. This enabled us to create transect lines from high to low tide. In total, we had it stretched 15 meters, ending at the waters edge. We then put our .5 meter by .5 meter quadrats down, starting at each meter and focused on the right side, to record the counted (some estimated) numbers of mobile animals, and percentages of attached animals and algae. A few of the mobile animals our field crew found were limpets, chitons, whelks, periwinkles, hermit crabs, etc. Some attached algae we found were green turf, red turf, green sheet, red sheet, hedophyllum, fucus, etc. And finally, a couple attached animals we found were barnacles, mussels, and other encrusting species. After finishing these transects, we split our transect line into three areas: low, medium, and high. We then used a caliper to measure and record at least 25 specimens in each section.

Photo by Tim Dwyer

Once we got back and had a quick snack, we headed to the science lab to go over the mistakes that sometimes go into data collection, and we all went over each others’ data and corrected any mistakes or writing that was unclear. We then wrote clear procedures of our morning transect and our slug transects from yesterday.

For lunch we enjoyed a mix of sandwiches and fruit/vegetables. After this well deserved meal, we again hopped in the van and made our way to the Friday Harbor Labs to take a ride in the Centennial. We used the Centennial to do a trawling and collect invertebrates (and some vertebrates) so that we could hold them in a tank and study them.

Photos by Seth Grant

We came across some bottom fish and got to look at them for awhile before putting them back in the water. I think this has been the most exciting day for the group thus far. Lots of crabs and fish and scallops came up in the trawl, and we all got to touch and see. It was truly an experience. We actually did two trawls and so we got to go through all the different species twice!!

Once back on the docks, Tim and Derek gave a diving demonstration and actually took a camera down with them so we could see. We had a walkie talkie kind of system and got to ask them to look at specific things or pick up some specimens we liked. A couple of us got sunburns during all this. We won’t forget sunscreen again.

Photo by Tim Dwyer

For dinner, an option between veggie or meat spaghetti and some bomb bread. But the day wasn’t over yet, we next went to an Antarctic photography presentation presented to us by Alasdair Turner called Antarctica: Ross Island and the Future of the McMurdo Sound Region sponsored by the San Juan Island Museum of Art. He showed us beautiful pictures and talked about the real Antarctica, like we would have never seen or heard otherwise. It wasn’t just all about beauty though, he also brought up why the ice was melting, global warming, ocean acidification, food chains, illegal fishing, and more. He was both serious and funny, and we’ve learned quite a lot. Until Tomorrow!!

• Here is Alasdair Turner’s Antarctica photography series.
• Here is Alasdair Turner’s Antarctica blog.