The Beginning...

Greetings world!

In our first day in our Marine Science intensive, we started at the upper school and we will remain there for the first 4 days of the intensive. We began the class with an interesting lab that was about dissecting and studying the body of the Squid. This was an awesome experiment because not only was the process fun, but it was also a new experience for me personally since I don’t spend time dissecting things ever. After we were able to rid the room from the squid smell, the class took our first field trip to the white house (at Hawken) and spoke with Ms. Bischoff and Mr. Colonna about the do's and don’t's for the trip. This was essentially just getting a sense of some of the rules established going into the Bahamas. Once this was done, there was a 20 minute break and then we continued class with lectures about topics that would be covered for out test tomorrow. After our 2 hour long lecture was over, lunch was served. Instead of eating Hawken lunch today, a peer and I made a Wendy’s run (when in doubt, always go with Wendy’s). We came back to class to watch and discuss a movie about Giant Squid and how they function. Subsequently, our class began lecturing again only this time we discussed Ocean life and how animals live in the oceans and seas. Overall, for the first day of classes, it was a good way to ease into action. Though there was a lot of information thrown at us today, I think the preparations they’ve given us for a test tomorrow our genuinely helpful. Let’s just hope everyone can walk out of class tomorrow with all A’s.

Dana and Rachel show off their squid specimen!

Although I don’t think we managed to collectively ace this morning’s test, we all came back strong for the second day after a short break. Some of us furiously refreshed to be the first into the mourning DyKnow session, while the rest of us wondered if their track pads would break under pressure. Then the class buckled down to learn about a whole giant host of marine mammals! We learned about sea lions, polar bears, sea otters, walruses, true seals, and all of the different types of whales. All of these animals shared our need to come to the surface to breathe, our hair, and how we wean our young on milk. While superheroes might not exist among humans, sea lions that are fed by two mothers are called super weaners. They get the power to be really really fat.

Check out this photo of a superweaner! 

(https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/139/348174488_5b45f93610_b.jpg)

After the lecture we turned to a documentary called “Inside Nature’s Giants: Sperm Whale”. We learned about the different anatomy of a sperm whale through the dissection of a beached whale from by extremely enthusiastic scientist named Joy. Even though it was pretty disgusting, Joy’s enthusiasms for both the sperm like fluid that allows sperm-whales to communicate, and the whale’s actual reproductive system, got us through the video. After coming back from lunch, we moved on to a long list of different invertebrates living in the ocean. From sponges to sea squirts we learned about all sorts of different unique anatomical structures that allowed for these organisms to thrive. Unfortunately, some of them thrive so much in the Bahamas that we have to make sure we don’t get stung by them.

We can't wait to see Cassiopeia jellies in real-life Friday night!

(http://www.diverosa.com/Egypt%20WL/Up-side-down%20Jellyfish,%20Cassiopeia%20andromeda.jpg)

After covering invertebrates is was time to meet some of the birds and fish we will see starting Friday. There will be so many new birds and fish to spot in the Bahamas that we practiced using a guidebook to identify slides of birds that we had not seen before. Even though weren’t thrilled with identifying a bull shark, it got us ready to experience the diverse biome we would be exploring.

Feeling pumped,

Desmond and Isaac