So Long, Spartina Spartans (UNF Cohort)

Our class for Field Studies in Marine Science has come to an end.

We have traveled around the state of Florida, visiting various institutions for teaching marine science.

We have learned about various marine habitats, the organisms that live in them, and how both natural factors and factors introduced by humans affect them.

We had opportunities to meet professors and students in various disciplines of marine science, and gain advice on how to approach opportunities to seek jobs in our field.

We helped harvest samples of marsh grass (Spartina alterniflora) for marsh restoration, explored coral reefs of varying health, reviewed the history of an oyster reef by dissecting core samples, collected data of animals collected by gear on the RV Weatherbird, observed transects of estuarine seagrass areas in both Bonita Springs and Pensacola, observed another transect on one of the sandbars in Pensacola for beach characteristics, helped with gear for observing groundwater seepage in the bay, and collecting sane pull data and water quality for 24 hours straight with hourly sampling and saning. These were some of the projects that we worked on during the course, and all of the ones listed are going to use the data from them in future research, either in the course or for the universities.

  I enjoyed my trip around Florida. Melissa Betters helped me travel around the state, allowing me to carpool with her every weekend to go to the next university. She and I met various new friends through this class. Corey Corrick, our teacher's assistant, traveled with us to all of the universities as our chaperone, with UNF giving him a budget for us to prepare our own meals when meals were not provided. The professors at the various universities had us engaged in the topics that are a focus in their respective fields. We learned about some of the graduate work that the professors were working with. Hopefully we could use the connections we made on this trip to get us started on networking for our future careers. 

Photo by Corey Corrick (his camera)