Blog by: Maxene, Olivia, Silas, Kashi

We started our day at American Camp! It was a pleasure being shown around by Emilio Santiago, who works for the National Park Service and was one of our dinner guests last week. At a seemingly uninteresting expanse of grass, we were flabbergasted to learn that we were standing at the remains of an old graveyard!

After American Camp, we headed off to Eagle Cove for lunch and swimming in the freezing, salty water. We reconnected with our inner mermaids as we explored the sandy beach and tested our cold-water tolerance.

We headed back to the dorms for a quick rinse and to begin project time. However, some of us were quickly derailed as we learned the devastating news that half of our precious aquarium water had mysteriously emptied overnight! Only one inch of lukewarm water remained. A couple of us went to the rescue by laboriously filling buckets with water to rejuvenate the tank. Others were lured to the heating kettle and enjoyed hot chocolate, ice cream, and iced coffee.

Recovering from the tank fiasco, we quickly settled in to finalize our research questions and hypotheses. Later tonight, we will attend the “Keystone molecules and kleptoplasty: new insights from sea slugs” lecture at Friday Harbor Labs by Dr. Patrick Krug. We are overjoyed and intrigued to hear this talk that turned our evening schedule upside down!

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!

Blog Credits: Aoife, Violet, Ripley, Wesley

Do you know how many species of clams there are around Argyle Beach? Today we learned about the little neck clam, the butter clam, and the invasive varnish clam, among many other organisms by the beach. The start to today, however, was a little more laid-back.

Today we switched it up with a relaxing, project-focused morning in preparation for Monday, when our topic selection is due. This mainly included background research, hypothesis development, methodology, and much support from our wonderful science team!

For a nice mid-day break, we packed lunch and headed out to Jackson Beach, where we explored the bay and adjacent Argyle Lagoon. While we were there, we dug for clams and waded in the natural saltwater stream flowing from the lagoon to the sea.

Today’s clam dig was both fun and informative, as any good scientific field work should be! Each group of students dug four 1×1” holes, two further up the beach (high intertidal) and two near the water (low intertidal). The extracted sediment was placed into large sieves, where clams were sorted from rocks and other invertebrates. Additionally, invasive Varnish Clams were separated from native clams–such as butter clams–which were reburied.

We are excited to welcome our guest for dinner tonight: Joe Heras, a scientist currently doing work with genomics and environmental DNA, or eDNA for short, at the FHL labs. Dr. Heras and his team are able to analyze water samples to determine what fish have been in the water. His experience in the field, as well as the lab, makes him a valuable mentor going forward as students continue to develop their experiments and become immersed in the world of science.

We woke up to the cozy breakfast we have every morning and got ready for the day ahead. Friday Harbor Labs greeted us bright and early, working on collecting plankton for our lab later that day.

Some of us went with Uma, a scientist currently working on crab larvae populations, specifically the dungeness crab.

We came back to the dorms to see the plankton and crab larvae under microscopes, identifying the organisms and tallying the crab larvae count. We had a quick snack and power nap before going down to the marina to collect organisms for our projects.

Down at the docks, we retrieved a pistaster sea star and several feather duster worms for the lab aquarium.

Next, we returned to Friday Harbor Labs to document organisms found on the docks, visit the molecular biology lab, and see the spot prawns at the sensory testing lab. We’re excited for tonight’s dinner with Dr. Ken Sebens of the UW Department of Biology and his presentation about marine benthic ecology, coral reef ecology, and theoretical ecology. This is a link of Dr. Sebens page at University of Washington.

https://biology.washington.edu/people/kenneth-sebens

Blog Credits: Owen, Addie, Sam, Eva

Written by Una, Addy, Kate and Gabe

Today we woke up well rested, we started our day with breakfast and packing lunch. We then headed to False Bay to meet with Dr. Vik Iyengar who studies the sexual reproduction of insects specifically the marine earwigs on the island. We helped him collect over 100 earwigs to use in his lab. They were very easy to find by just flipping over logs.

After helping out Dr. Iyengar, we surveyed for Lugworms. A couple students dug them up and others used quadrats to record how many were in certain areas. Some students just threw the quadrats and recorded data like that, while others were deliberately looking for signs of the worms. The signs of the worms look like skinny piles of sand, since the worms basically eat the sand and poop it back out! They do this to digest the bacteria in the sand for food, but they don’t want the sand so it has to go somewhere.

After wrapping up our earwigs and Lugworms, we ate lunch at False Bay before heading back to the dorms. We quickly ran down to the marina and collected buckets of water for our aquarium to hold our testing creatures. Finally, we sat down and continued to develop our ideas for projects. Some students are still searching for the perfect idea, some are meeting with scientists, and others are digging deep. We are so excited to build these projects and share with our family, friends, peers and the locals of Friday Harbor.

We have no guest tonight, so many of us are exploring town before we have dinner and some fun group activities tonight!

Blog Credits: Olivia, Maxene, Silas, Kashi

Spirits were high this morning. We started off this morning with an extra hour of sleep, and woke up to a hot breakfast of eggs and donuts (kudos to Tom). 

Although the weather was gloomy, we loaded into the vans to go to 4th of July Beach to meet Kate Kelly, a PhD student studying eelgrass wasting disease. After a couple minutes of sloshing through the marshy shore, we reached our destination and started our surveying.

Lunch found us on a bluff overlooking the shore, where we enjoyed beautiful views, an Orca sighting, and some (almost) successful fishing. 

We later met with Shauna Barrows, to assist her in cleaning up a restoration site on the West side of San Juan. 

By Isla, Alice, Cynthia, and Matthew

We started our day with a 7:00 am wake-up call and took a 20-minute van ride over to Cattle Point.

There, we met Dr. Katie Dobkowski, an associate professor at Woodbury University, and two undergraduate students studying with her. We first did a quick survey of the beach, picking up pieces of crabs and their molts.

Our next task was to contribute to a 40-year data set on differences in algae biodiversity based on distance from the water. We laid out a transect and placed quadrats every two meters.

Within the quadrats, we identified the coverage percentage of the different species of algae.

The data we collected offers a better understanding of algae population changes on the Cattle Point shore. After a couple of hours of observing and recording, we ate lunch up by the lighthouse.

Back at the lab, we revisited our fecal coliform test on the marina water. Based on the colonies that grew in our samples, we were able to determine that the water is in excellent condition.

This means that the water treatment facility in Friday Harbor is working well!

Later, we went back to the dorms to continue our individual project brainstorms.

The end!

Blog Credits: Aoife, Ripley, Wesley, Violet

Our morning began as any good morning should–with eelgrass! We met up with local ecologist Sage Enright, who works with the San Juan Islands Conservation District to restore a rapidly declining population of eelgrass. We surveyed the beach at Friday Harbor Labs, recording the number of cockle shells carrying eelgrass seeds that were attached by scientists. These shells act as “planters”, burrowing into the sand and dispersing the seeds among the sediment.

For a short break in-between surveys, we were able to explore the beach and tide pools. It was interesting to observe how the organisms at Deadman’s Bay and the beach at Friday Harbor Labs compared. Oysters and large crabs were abundant at the beach today, something we hadn’t seen at Deadman’s.

We ended our busy morning with a lunch break at Turn Point County Park. Luckily for us, Sage joined us to teach more about the structure and uses of eelgrass, which is vitally important to both the ecosystem and Coast Salish Peoples.

Each month, scientists conduct water testing on behalf of the Port of Friday Harbor to ensure the safety of the community. This month, we got the privilege to assist in the collection and processing of seawater samples from selected locations around the marina. These water samples are used to check for overabundance of a harmful bacteria, fecal coliform. We took our samples back to the lab to prepare them for incubation, where we can record the bacterial concentration.

Today was an exciting blur of hands-on field and lab work. We’re excited to get back out there tomorrow and assist another scientist with their research. Tonight, we are having dinner with Dr. Richard Strathmann, a professor at the University of Washington who also focuses on embryology at Friday Harbor Labs.

Written by Eva, Sam, Addie, and Owen

It was an earlier morning than usual, since we were going tide pooling. We had the same breakfast we’ve had for the past forever, but it still hit the same. With an early start, we headed to Deadman’s Bay for low tide.

We arrived before the lowest tide so we could have more time exploring all of the diverse tidepools. We found many different organisms down at the bay, such as sea stars, sea urchins, crabs, and much more.

After our time in the tidepools, we had a nice lunch with a view on the beach.

We visited the farmer’s market in town and all the stalls of produce, artisan baked goods, and handmade art.

We then made our way back to the dorms to get a talk on invertebrate phyla from Adam. After a great lecture on all the invertebrates in the Salish Sea, we were introduced to our personal projects, and what resources we will be able to use for our end-of-course presentation. Afterwards, we sat down and brainstormed and prepared for an amazing dinner prepped by our fellow friends. Tonight we plan to have a wonderful talk from Shauna Barrows, she works for the land bank on San Juan Island. She does lots of ecosystem restoration in the island and keeps it looking as beautiful as it does. https://www.hometrust.org/shauna-barrows

Written by: Addy, Eva, Sam, Gabe and Una

Today was an early morning, we awoke grateful it didn’t rain and began with packing up all our gear. Before we could have yogurt and granola or oatmeal, we had to turn in our tents to prove we were all packed up. After eating, we began to move boats into the water and bring all our gear down to the shore. We packed up the boats and loaded up. Spray skirts and PFD’s on and we were so ready to paddle back. We began our journey back. Through wind, rain, strong current, and lots of scattered singing, we made it through John’s pass, Spiden channel, and back to Rosche Harbor. Once we got out of the kayak and stretched our legs, we unloaded the boats and loaded up the trailer. Since it was pouring, we headed to Jackson beach for some pulled pork sandwiches and snacks. After eating, we loaded back into the vans and to the dorms. We all showered, did laundry, and relaxed to reset from our long but amazing trip. We had some lasagna for dinner and are now winding down for probably an early night to prepare for tide pooling tomorrow. Unfortunately, not many photos today since the conditions were questionable and not many safe opportunities to take out our phones.