We are fortunate. Aside from a tremendous year-round faculty, the University of Friday Harbor Laboratories becomes home every summer to over 200 researchers—many of whom are willing to take the time not only to share their research with our students, but also involve them in it.

On the evening of July 1st, University of Washington graduate student Will King joined us for casual conversation over a sushi dinner prepared by dorm parent Sara Song Grant with the able assistance of three of our students.

Photos by Seth Grant

Three other students prepared the table and welcomed Will, peppering him with insightful questions—these same students wrote the day’s blog entry. The remaining students operated on clean-up crew. We rotate these stations daily.

After dinner, Will gave a presentation introducing us to aspects of climate change, encouraged questions, and informed us how to collect and use data effectively—not just for results, but also to stimulate fresh questions.

His own research aims at understanding climate change through an analysis of barnacle thermal tolerance.

On the morning of July 2nd, we joined Will in the field.

Photos by Caroline Grauman-Boss

Here are a few pictures of students working along their transect lines in the intertidal zone, identifying and quantifying three species of barnacle.