Day
1 of Research Project Work

Today
was the first day that all the students were given the opportunity to
work on their projects in the field after our day of relaxation at
Dunn’s River Falls yesterday. The weather was quite windy within the last 12 hours so the bottom sediment was stirred up making the
visibility within the lagoon area limited (less than 1 foot) causing
some students to terminate their work for the day. Those of us that
did venture out over the blue hole had better visibility and were
able to collect water samples to bring back to the lab for analysis
and filtration in our sedimentation project. While out over the
deeper water Amy, Ben and I were able to see and chase down a spotted
eagle ray (Aetobatus narinari). Tonight we will all have our
first opportunity to share with the class what our experiments are
and give positive feedback to help better each other’s studies so
that by next Friday our results will either prove or disprove our
hypotheses.

Ben McKeeby and I
working on our project. (Photo courtesy of Amy Marshall)

-Kevin Ryan