Greetings from sunny/rainy Belize! Today was a fun and somewhat more relaxed day than our last few. I am writing this before dinner from the main gathering room at Belize Marine TREC. The students are hard at work collating the data from their research project.
Our day began by boarding at the dock at 9AM, but this time, we boarded a speed boat rather than the usual slow-but-steady Goliath:
Thanks to our speedy transport, we were able to efficiently visit several sites in a timely manner:
We began by continuing our reef research project at Coral Gardens. The students located and identified stands of three types of coral. First was staghorn coral:
Second was elkhorn coral:
Third was boulder brain coral:
The students worked in groups to identify and count the fish associated with each type of coral. As you can see from the photos, these corals have significantly different shapes. Does the shape of the coral correlate with the species richness and abundance found there? Stay tuned to find out!
Once our work was complete, we took some time to explore the area, which is rapidly becoming one of our favorite sites:
Our next stop was a shipwreck created when a supply barge sunk during a hurricane in the early 1980s. It's fascinating to watch over the decades as the coral and other marine life consumes the wreck, turning a rusting hulk into a biodiversity hot spot. The students enjoyed looking inside and all around the large wreck:
By this time, it was nearly noon. We motored our way to Caye Caulker, a small island with an incredibly laid back vibe (I sometimes called CC "The Island That Time Forgot"):
We enjoyed a basic lunch at a local restaurant:
We then wandered the island as a group, visiting a site to see seahorses (unfortunately there were none!) and another site to feed tarpon:
We then enjoyed some local ice cream (I'm a sucker for ice cream and will buy it for whoever wants some whenever we find it!):
We then split up for a few hours to be spent wandering the small island and stimulating its economy:
At 3:30, we returned to our boat for the 30 minute ride home (the same trip takes about 2 hours in Goliath):
Along the way, we ran into another tropical downpour, visible from a few miles away, that pelted us with rain and soaked us just a bit:
Once back on land, the students got to work, collating and comparing the data collected by 3 groups at 12 sites over 2 days:
Elizabeth then led the students through a lab meeting in the classroom:
The students have settled upon a unified research question: Is there a correlation between the type of coral and the diversity and abundance of fish associated with it? The class is collecting one large set of data and sharing it, but every student is writing his/her own report. So far, they have completed their Background and Methods section (and handed them in for feedback). By tomorrow, we will have collected all our data and the work can continue. I am proud to report that every student is taking this work seriously and seems genuinely interested to produce results and draw conclusions. This is the real heart of this course, which allows it to fulfill the general education requirement for a laboratory science course. Understanding the process of science by performing actual scientific research is at the heart of what we hope to accomplish in this course.
After our work was complete, it was time for a dinner at TREC and then an evening free on the island.
Everyone is well, sunburns are finally under control, we've had some relatively minor coral scraped (and one pelican bite!) but nothing that a few bandaids couldn't fix. Every student is working hard and having fun.
Thanks for reading!
- Eric J. Simon, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Biology & Health Science, New England College
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