{"id":8270,"date":"2024-07-24T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T17:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/?p=8270"},"modified":"2024-07-29T23:34:09","modified_gmt":"2024-07-29T23:34:09","slug":"day-4-7-24-24-touring-friday-harbor-labs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/day-4-7-24-24-touring-friday-harbor-labs\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 4, 7\/24\/24; Touring Friday Harbor Labs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Blog by Akemi, Evan, Maddie, and Ella<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The group looking at sea tables in one of the lab buildings at Friday Harbor Labs–Credit to Evan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today was a later morning, with wake-up an hour later at 8:30. Our first \u201cactivity\u201d of the day was learning about the packing for our imminent kayaking trip to Jones Island with Crystal Seas Kayaking. We learned more about how to pack and what we would need for our 3-day trip. At around 10:30, we left for Friday Harbor Labs, a world-renowned research facility used by professors and students from all over. The facility has 12 labs and can accommodate 80 researchers and 175 people. Michelle Hecko was kind enough to give us a great tour of the Lab\u2019s campus, and provided an interesting insight into some of the projects and unique features of the facility. One of the most interesting things about the lab as a whole was their flow-through water system, which brings water in and out of the facility quickly, allowing the scientists to observe the creatures in their sea tables and aquariums in a very natural water setting. In fact, this is one of the top reasons for people to come and use the labs! Another thing we learned about was a fairly new project regarding sunflower stars. Sunflower stars are a type of sea star that was heavily affected by the sea star wasting disease, and the labs are home to a project attempting to grow them artificially and return them to their natural habitats. This has been done before, but no other labs have been able to grow them from their first larval stage to full adults before releasing them, which was really interesting to learn about! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The group learning about survey methods at False Bay.–Credit to Evan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After leaving Friday Harbor Labs, we went to perform field research at False Bay. We first ate lunch by the vans and then we finally got to wear our mucking boots! We had all been eagerly awaiting this moment since we first picked our boots. We took research equipment such as quadrats, shovels, buckets, and a big sieve (not like the one in your kitchen). We all had a surprise when we learned we were looking for lugworm fecal casings (poop). We split into three groups. One group walked through the muddy water with quadrats (a quarter meter slate) to count the number of fecal casings throughout the beach. Another group shoveled holes in the beach in spots, where there was evidence of critters crawling under the sand\/mud, to see what we could find other than fecal casings. The last group sifted through the shoveled sand in the big sieve to try to see what was hiding in the sand. We found some shrimp, lugworms, crabs and even some jellyfish in the water. At the end we stood in a circle and discussed our findings, some of us sunk into the mud and got stuck, but overall it was a very fun and educational experience!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A view of False Bay’s mud flats from the rocks above. –Credit to Evan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At about 2:00 pm, we went to the art classroom to hear a talk from Jess Newley of the \u201cFriends of San Juan Islands\u201d organization. She brought along her cute dog Ollie! We learned about significant organisms in the waters around the San Juan Islands, but we mainly learned about her teaching style! Jess believes it’s super important to incorporate what you love into your teaching (for her, it’s ocean photography!) At the end, she showed us the product of her underwater photography, using Oculus VR sets to show us salmon she encountered on her 360\u00b0 camera to present to students! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The group trying out Jess’ VR headsets!–Credit to Evan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After eating the amazing sandwiches provided by the team at Salish Seas Sciences we attended a lecture at the Friday Harbor Labs commons where speaker Alyssa M Hernandez presented her talk \u201cRobots For Biology\u201d. During this presentation, Hernandez covered her story in science regaling her journey through biology to engineering where she continues to use her knowledge of the natural world to inspire her current work. We learned about her studies in robotic mobility where she used beetles in designing terrain-effective legs. We also learned about improvements to suction cups inspired by fish such as the cling fish and Snail fish. This was a great way to experience a college lecture and learn about new ways that robotics can help people learn about biology and vice versa. Overall, this was a busy but fulfilling day and we’re all looking forwards to our kayaking trip tomorrow morning!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blog by Akemi, Evan, Maddie, and Ella Today was a later morning, with wake-up an hour later at 8:30. Our first \u201cactivity\u201d of the day was learning about the packing for our imminent kayaking trip to Jones Island with Crystal Seas Kayaking. We learned more about how to pack and what we would need for our 3-day trip. At around 10:30, we left for Friday Harbor Labs, a world-renowned research facility used by professors and students from all over. The facility has 12 labs and can accommodate 80 researchers and 175 people. Michelle Hecko was kind enough to give us a great tour of the Lab\u2019s campus, and provided an … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":239,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8270"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/239"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8271,"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8270\/revisions\/8271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salishseasciences.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}