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Through out HSMB pre and post-trip classes, we have participated in a "waste-free Lunch" challenge. Our goal throughout experience has been to eliminate as much waste from going to land fills as possible. In this effort, we have recycled as much plastic, glass, metal and paper as possible and deposited our organic waste into worm bins to be transformed into compost.

We learned how worms can be used to compost our food waste.

There were many challenges involved in this task because many items in everyday lunches are non-recyclable. Many food items designed for students to take to school in their lunches, items like chip bags, individually wrapped fruit snack wrappers, food trays, containers, etc are non-recyclable. To eliminate these and other items that could very easily end up in landfills, we utilized things like Tupperware containers to carry our sandwiches and chips, reusable lunch boxes to carry our meals, and reusable water bottles, thermoses to carry our drinks and tried to buy in bulk instead of purchasing individually wrapped items. Organic items such as apple cores, banana peels, brown paper bags, and other similar items were places into compost bins instead sending them to a landfill where often even organic items don't get a chance to break down because of lack of oxygen and landfill conditions. Plastic were a particular challenge at first because of some confusion about the different kinds of plastics and which ones could be recycled in different areas, but now we have the hang of it and will always remember to buy plastic items with recycling logos on them and match the numbers with the ones that can be recycled in our area.

It may be difficult at first and take some getting used to, but in the end you too can make a difference by reducing your human footprint and the amount of waste that you send to a landfill!

The goal of our vegetation survey was to answer the question of whether the invasive species, Australian pine, would impact the occurrence of native plant species in the surrounding area. From this question, we drew our hypothesis. It states that the presence Australian pines will reduce the amount of native vegetation in the surrounding area. In order to calculate this, we measured both the height and canopy cover of Australian Pines in two locations around Bimini because we believe that it is the height and the width of these trees that are eliminating native vegetation from the area by blocking out the valuable sunlight needed for photosynthesis. Vegetation native to Bimini is generally low lying, none of which grow to higher than 10 feet. Therefore we believe that a tall tree species like Australian pine could easily out compete these native species for sunlight, thus establishing itself in a given area. To measure the tree height, we used a clinometer, while we used densiometer to measure canopy cover.

Hypothesis:

Plankton are organisms that drift in water currents. There are two types of plankton; zooplankton and phytoplankton. Phytoplankton are primary producers that are light-dependent. Zooplanktons, on the other hand, are microscopic animals that feed on the phytoplankton. The majority of plankton lives in the photic zone. Plankton can be an indirect or direct source of food for most aquatic organisms and are the base of the aquatic food web. In order to better understand the quantity of plankton communities in the Bahamas during different times of day, we conducted the plankton tow.

We hypothesized that phytoplankton would be the most common plankton found. In our experiment, we expected to find more of the primary producers mainly because they are light dependent and would most likely drift near the surface opposed to deeper waters. In our experiment, another variable we put to the test was time of day; two of our plankton tows were conducted during the day as well as 2 more during the night. With this, we hypothesized that we would find more zooplankton during the night tows because they feed at night; their vertical migration also occurs at this time.

Data Summary:

Our collected data opposed our hypothesis. We found that more zooplankton were found both during the day as well as during the night. Although the numbers of zoo and phytoplankton were somewhat similar for the day, the night numbers showed a significant difference in the amount of zoo and phytoplankton. As we know, this was because the zooplankton vertically migrated in the evening to feed, greatly increasing its number. According to our research, stormy weather also had an effect on the amount of plankton collected. The results we collected after the squall were significantly greater than on a calm day. With the plankton, the squall also increased the amount of sedimentation, inorganic matter suspended in water. Our results helped us propose other questions we may ask about plankton quantities such as; Would the depth of the plankton tow affect the amount of plankton collected?

In our hypothesis we stated that the grassy bottom would have more biodiversity than the sandy bottom. We came up with this hypothesis because we thought that there would be more fish that lived within the grass of the ocean. The smaller fish and juvenile fish used the combination of shallow water and the turtle grass as protection from the larger carnivores. We predicted that the sandy bottom would not have a large biodiversity because most fish would not camouflage in with the sand and therefore their predators would be able to see them and eat them.

Marine debris is any continuous solid material that is abandoned or disposed of into the aquatic environment. Not only does this kill a lot of our marine life, it also interferes with navigational safety and human health. Our oceans and waterways are constantly polluted with a wide variety of marine debris ranging from soda cans and plastic bags to derelict fishing gear and abandoned vessels.

Our results did not support our prediction. We predicted that as canopy coverage increased, native species would decrease and as the number of trees in the area increased, native species would decrease. In our results, canopy coverage of tree one was 52.68% and there was one native species around the tree. Canopy coverage of tree two was 83.88% and there were two native species around the tree. Sea purslane was the native plant present around the Casuarina equisetifolia. We did not collect data on the number of Australian pine in the experimental area.

 Our research project is based around figuring out the difference in species diversity between grassy and sandy ocean habitats. Our first experiment included dragging a huge net (seine) into a sandy, shallow environment to collect and observe specimens. To do this, our team dragged the net perpendicular to the shore into the water until it reached our chests. Eventually, we pulled our net parallel to the shore while five of our teammates split up to beat the water, scaring the fish so they wouldn't escape. Our four tallest pullers dragged the net towards shore while our snorkler trailed behind to make sure it didn't get caught on the ocean bottom. Then came the time to count the specimens we had found! Our first attempt proved to be a great success as we counted all the fish that were in the net. Our second trial blew us away as we discovered a huge school of permit fish and came out with great results. We spotted a huge variety of wildlife on the sandy bottom. Hopefully our grassy bottom experiments will exceed these trials to meet our experimental prediction.

 

Marine Debris Survey

On July, 4th 2008 we collected and recorded all of the marine debris along 50 feet of beach from the low tide mark to the vegetation line. The graph above shows the number of objects collected by material.

Follow the link below for a more detailed break down of the debris collected. We will share the data that we have collected with a projected funded by the National Geographic Society. This project is compiling data collected around the world to learn more about marine debris.

This data was compiled by, Alex and Brianne.

As students of the High School Marine Biology program at the Shedd Aquarium, we are making an effort to reduce the size of the "footprint" we leave on our world. One easy way to do this is to make an effort to reduce the amount of trash associated with our lunches. After eating each day, we separate our trash into recyclables, compost, and garbage - weighing and recording each. Our challenge is to try to lessen the amount of garbage we produce each day. Our ultimate goal is having a lunch that produces no waste at all! By participating in a waste free lunch contest we are working to reduce the amount of garbage that enters the waste stream, ending up in our neighborhoods, parks, beaches, lakes and landfills.

The organic trash (food matter) that is added to our compost is broken down by worms and returned to the soil. This process, called vermicomposting, is an easy and fun way to reduce your environmental impact because it keeps waste from going to the landfill and produces organic fertilizer that can be used in your garden.

For more information on how to make your own worm bin, please visit the following link provided by Shedd Aquarium.

http://www.sheddaquarium.org/pdf/shedd_worm_brochure1.pdf