ERNESTINA and her crew were joined by
students from Fairhaven High School today. This
morning the crew were up before dawn, eating a
hot breakfast and meeting in the galley to
prepare for the arrival of 22 students and 3
teachers (including science teacher Erin Gordon
and retired science teacher Barbara Belanger who
brought her students last year) from Fairhaven
High School. The group of Marine Studies and
Environmental Science students boarded at 0810
for a 6-hour sail, one of 4 legs of the SEEAL
(Southeastern Environmental Education Alliance)
program focusing on watersheds.
Some of the students have already engaged in
explorations on the Acushnet River; others have
spent a day exploring in canoes on Slocums
River. Todays sail on Ernestina was an
integrating component, as all the watersheds in
this area connect through the Bay. Also onboard
and participating in todays sail was Dan
Herslinger, grant coordinator for this 4-part
program.
The day fetched up sunny and fair, with light
to moderate northerly breezes. So our jaunt out
the harbor channel under the four lower sails was
a peaceful downwind lega great environment
for learning stations. Each group of students
participated in all aspects of the morning
program, progressing from bow watch and helm, to
navigation, to the plankton tow, to water
chemistry.
Todays plankton tows were outrageously
bountiful; whereas yesterdays waters seemed
clear and virtually devoid of life, todays
samples appeared literally jelly-like in their
fecundity. The color of each dish was a rich,
shiny brown, and each scopes slide offered
multiple layers of marine life for exploration
and identification. We saw the usual copepods but
also thousands of centric diatoms (giving that
rich golden brown color to the water), several
segmented worms, and varieties of phytoplankton
many of us hadnt seen before. Barbara
Belanger, recently retired teacher who has led
countless trips from Farihaven High School in the
past, joined in to help identify the creatures.
Onboard Educator/Deckhand Kristen connected
the properties of water with the students
biological explorations. Looking at relative
densities of salt and fresh water, students took
samples from the surface and compared the density
of [cold] salt water with that of [cold] fresh
water. The take-home message from this station?
Salt water is visibly more dense than fresh
water; but temperature would actually have a
greater effect on density than salinity does. The
students puzzled this through and Ms. G. seemed
satisfied that the message would reinforce their
classroom experiences.
Lunch was a pleasure in todays precious
warm sunshine, but we couldnt indulge in
any lounging! Right after lunch we began setting
up the otter trawl net for our bay-bottom haul.
Given the light breezes, we didnt even need
to take in our mainsail. Half the students helped
crew to set up and cast away the net, while half
focused on food webs and marine life
interrelationships, in anticipation of our haul.
Everyone helped haul in the net and crew were
impressed with how clean the haul was, right off
Clarks cove. We had a little codium and red
algae, a good-sized winter flounder, several
moon-snail hermit crabs, a 6" conch shell, a
few ctenophores, some quahog shells, and a bit of
sea lettuce. Ms. G prompted students to recall
that sea lettuce indicates an abundanceor
over-abundanceof nutrients from runoff,
connecting our findings today with students
explorations of upper reaches of the watershed.
We talked about the life cycle of each of the
critters we examined, and students combed
carefully through guidebooks to distinguish
between summer and winter flounder.
After all hands helped to strike and furl our
sails, we motored up into the harbor. Students
and teachers engaged in conversations to
summarize and re-cap what we observed today and
how these experiences relate to their studies of
the watersheds that feed into Buzzards Bay. We
had a few minutes for students and teachers to
write their comments and feedback on evaluation
sheets before we arrived at dock.
Program Coordinator: MaryHelen Gunn
Captain: Sophie Morse
This
program funded, in part, thanks to a grant from
the Community Foundation of Southeastern
Massachusetts
and the Massachusetts Environmental Trust.
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