|
Teachers in the Field |
|
|
Teachers in the Field |
January 16, 2002
|
We left the dock at 9 AM this morning for
a full day on the water. Don and Mrs. McCorry did the Environmental
Data sheet. Ann and I sat in the stern and completed the Dolphin Survey sheet, which is only completed when there is a dolphin sighting. |
Don and refractometer (measures salinity) |
GPS (Global Positioning System) -takes the longitude and latitude |
Dolphin Survey Chart |
We saw 20 dolphins today in two sightings.
Again it amazed me how Sue could keep track of where the dolphins were. A dolphin comes up for air every 3 - 4 minutes, but when it's down - zoom, it moves like lightening! It can go anywhere and come up anywhere or not come up where you can see it. A dolphin is a terrifically strong swimmer. |
| We used a "clock" to call out dolphin sightings. The bow (front) of the boat is 12 o'clock and the stern (rear) of the boat is six o'clock. The port (left) side of the boat is 9 o'clock and the starboard (right) side is 3 o'clock. You can fill in the missing hours, 1, 2, 4, 5, etc. It is easy and gives immediate information to our "Captain" Sue. Imagine how confusing it would be to call out, "I see a dolphin over there!" |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Some of the dolphins that we saw today are
RP 45, Ibumps, Pi, Yori and FB 146.
The photo to the left is the Mote research boat, Nai'a, (translates into "dolphin" in Hawaiian.) Edward is a candidate for a Ph.D in marine biology and he is collecting data on male dolphins for his dissertation. (What is a dissertation? Anyone know?) Good luck, Edward. |
|
We got back to the dock around 4 PM. Then we listened to Stephanie, the lab manager, explain what she did with all those photo ids and data the project collects. There are over 25,000 pieces of information and Stephanie has it all organized on a computer! What we can find out from all this data is a story for another day!
|
contact
ride1034@ride.ri.net