by Eliza and Henry and Samuel

Is this the krusty krab? No, this is Patrick! Today, Salish Sea students were guided today by Alex McIntire, a college senior working his marine biology major degree along with a minor in chemistry at Oregon State University, who also happens to be a San Juan local. We loaded up in the van after a delicious pancake breakfast made for Sarah’s birthday courtesy of Henry. made our way to the rocky tidepools at Reuben Tarte. There, we searched for a variety of different sea star species. Their stleather, purple ochre, and blood sea stars scattered around the multiple tidepools. We then proceeded to tally up the sea stars we found and take photos of them, cataloging the species for future ID. Once we had a good l on the number of sea stars in the area, we tested the pH of the ocean and tidepools. We learned from Alex that the open ocean has an average pH of around 8.1 but here in the Salish sea our waters are more acidic with a pH of 7.8 since the Salish sea is more enclosed and thus experinces less water exchange which leads to higher pH. However, our pH test showed the water as extremely acidic with a pH of around 6.4 in the ocean and 6.2 in the tide pools! Luckly it was our pH test strips that were damaged not our ocean which just goes to show the importance of having the right tools for the job when it comes to science. Monitoring the sea star population is an important task as many star populations have been dramatically reduced by Sea star wasting disease has managed to drastically decrease our sea star population over the years, causing their tissue to decay until they eventually die. Currently, we know little about how sea stars contract, carry, and spread this disease so students had to be very vigilant about not touching any of the stars as to not transfer the illness from sick stars to healthy ones.

After the tidepools we headed back to the dorms and pooled our data on water temperatures along with starfish populations. That evening Samuel and Elsbeth finished the Birthday cake and cupcakes which we had after our tostada diner.