Bio Field Trip: Indian River Lagoon
By Kayce Harris
This past week, four out of the many juniors that went on a Biology field trip to the Indian River Lagoon, gathered data for college students. Junior, Maylin Kabaservice, was one of the four that went on the trip. She explains, “I thought it was awesome, we did a lot of hands on activities and they were fun while also teaching me something which I thought was crazy.” That “something”, Kabaservice says, is “how real marine biologists do their experiments in the world.” Lovissa Felix, another junior, says that “I felt excited but at the same time nervous because I wasn’t sure what exactly we would be doing and science isn’t my forte.” She also explains that, for the trip, “we didn’t need to bring anything but lunch and water because we were outside and the organizers gave us a packet that had different activities to keep us engaged.”
There were a total of three stations that each of the five groups got to visit around the lagoon. “Our group went into the water to observe the oysters growing on the nets they had in the water while me and Makalin stayed on the bridge to record the data,” Felix says, “The second one, the people in my group observed the current while I stayed on land to record the data. Lastly, we observed the pH of the water using different tools.” Junior, Sophia Pargain, went as well with her group and explained that “some of the activities I remember doing on the trip was looking for fishes in the lagoon and trying to catch and identify them, doing scavenger hunt, and measuring the salinity and cleanness of the water.”
Junior, Chole Martinez, explained that “we looked at the wildlife in the water then measured the salinity and oxygen levels of the water too. Then went to other stations and looked at the various wildlife living in the lagoon.” Her group, and others, also got to not only explore the nature of being under water but also the life of the animals living around the lagoon. “On land we looked for typical things like bugs and small creatures that usually live in areas with humidity like lizards and dragonflies,” Martinez explains, “we didn't collect further data in order to preserve the wildlife.”
“My favorite station was going into the water since we could experience the animals first hand,” Martinez explains after the trip, “my least favorite might have been finding the salinity of the water since the equipment was limited.” Felix explains that “my favorite was the currents one because it was the most interactive, my least favorite was the one with the nets because the things growing on the nets looked disgusting.” Even with all of the various activities to do Felix says that “me and some of the other girls swung on the swings and played crossy-road trying to pass through the people on the swings. Swinging on the swings was just somethings we chose to do while we had time for lunch.” So with the help of all of the students who went, the college students who took the data wouldn’t have been able to do this without them.