And Introduction Week is over!

Thanks very much to Dr. Teresa Greely for giving the class this half a week. We had some interesting presentations, demonstrations, and even some excitations :)

We started out with some introductions and an overview of oceanography. After a short but interesting kayak trip (pics to come), we were a little wet but a probably a lot more comfortable with the new group, and it turned out to be a great way for students who didn't know the others to interact in a fun and comfortable setting.

Day 2 started out lectures on some abiotic properties of the ocean.

Here we talked about physical properties of seawater and Teresa began the process of tying it all in with the marine biota and how it all depends on the abiotic factors of the ocean.

That afternoon we got some great exposure to different aspects of geological oceanography from some of the USF graduate students. A special thanks to John Elizabeth and Tasha for giving the students some insight into plate tectonics and paleo-oceanography! 

John gave us a demonstration in the wax lab, a nice visualization for seafloor spreading centers

and then from there we visited the Paleo lab to learn how ocean sediment cores and foraminifera can be used to reconstruct climate profiles from thousands or millions of years ago. 

Finally Teresa set up her famous temperature and salinity gradients demonstration to show how thermoclines and haloclines are formed in the ocean. The students loved this one:

Day 3 we got into biologcal oceanography with primary production, trophic webs, and adaptations. Maria Vega-Rodriguez gave a great presentation on Remote Sensing from satellite data and its uses. 

We got to see the College of Marine Science transmission electron microscope and scanning electron microscope and the World's Smallest Art Show with Tony Greco. Here we got to see high resolution images of some of the smallest organisms, from radiolarians and diatoms to bacteria. 

.....and some were in 3-D :)

FINALLY to top off the already awesome half week we had, Teresa brought out some preserved fish she had on hand and students talked about adaptations such as feeding strategies and swimming abilities by examining the fishes external anatomy. Needless to say everyone had a great time with this one!

So week one is over, and now we look forward to meeting Dr. Ebel and the rest of the faculty at UWF on Sunday night! And we've just begun....

Till next time!

-Brock