From Snails to Whales: #Steph

Showing posts with label #Steph. Show all posts

Friday, August 1, 2014

Whale watching!

Hello everyone! I had so much fun today! I thought I would share the photos I was able to get from today's whalewatch! Ok, actually, I video taped everything and then did screen shots of the video and then cropped those shots....but they are still pretty nice :)

This one below is actually a picture of the whale's mouth as he is upside down!!

Thursday, July 24, 2014

operation fishing

Alrighty….so this was my first time fishing and let me just say this: I SUCK!

But any who, first we started with a sea worm which totally reaped me out. I mean the thing had fangs and when it opened it's mouth the fangs came out and it was pretty scary. To be honest, I didn't really touch it. What can I say? I'm a scaredy cat. Apparently, this is the thing that helps us catch small fish like Black sea bass (which was about 15 inches in length). This bad boy was actually pretty. It's scales and fins made it look like a whiskery type fish…if that makes any sense. It was black and grey in color. The sea work also helped us catch a two flounders (Right eyed might I add). the flounders are cool because they start off with their eyes on each side and the eyes slowly move to one side of their body…creepy…but amazing. One flounder is about 12 inches and the other was about 16 inches. See pics:

Silver hake whiting was used to catch the big one: The 38 inch striped bass!!

Look at the size of that bass! Look at it's gills. So pretty. Too bad I'm allergic to fish because I would not have minded eating that bad boy!

I forgot to add, before we left on the boat, we saw this cool visual of how the tide rises and what sorts of living things attach to the docks. This right here shows how high the tide rises and shows that further down, certain plants algae prefer to be far away from the sun.

Here are my notes on the fishing part of our trip…please don't judge the drawings!

Part 2: We had to find 4 living things at Lovell's island. Here are my four:

1. hermit crab
2. Asian shore crab
3. Periwinkle
4. Barnacles

Welp, I learned a lot. I even went to P-Town and found my very own hermit crab and showed it to my son and as promised by Bruce, my son was thoroughly impressed and I earned brownie points #YayBrownies

Oh and here's us knocking em back on the boat afterwards. What happened after is a secret…let's just say it involved lots of water and tylenol the next day #Friends4Eva

Thursday, July 17, 2014

My findings

The dock exercises actually taught me a lot of new things. I learned that there is so much life near and under the docks and that the weird scary looking green stuff stuck to the dock is not actually creepy but is very beautiful and filled with life. The following is a list of all of the plants that I saw:

1. There was a green plant that looked exactly like lettuce. I later found that the name of this plant is Ulva Lactuca.

2. The second plant I saw was bright red. This plant felt very soft even though the texture of it looked somewhat rough. It didn't protrude from the dock, it sort of just created a coat over the dock under the other plants. We later found this red stuff to be velvety red sponge.

3. Then I saw what looked like a bee's honey comb. It was somewhat brown and had many holes inside of it. The holes were layered with a black covered ring. After carefully examining this object, we confirmed it to be a Golden Star Tunicate.

4. I also observed seaweed with some type of pods at the ends. We were able to identify this to be Fucaceae.

5. I thought I noticed clams under the dock. They were actually Blue Mussels.

6. My favorite was a little broccoli looking thing. It was brown and had black frills with white tips. I love it because once you touch it, it contracts and sort of tucks in. I was literally like a small child playing with this broccoli like thing. After examining my guide, I recognized it to be a frilled anemone.

7. Through our experiences, we were able to recognize some barnacles. However, after looking at the guide, I realized that there are several types of barnacles. The one we saw was actually a Thatched Barnacle.

The next group is a list of the animals we saw:

1. At the dock, we scooped up some of the above mentioned plants and noticed small tiny shrimp like animals swimming around in the cup. These shrimp like things were about .5 mm and were brown and white striped. We identified those to be Hyallela aztecas.

2. There was also a stick guy....as we like to call it. It was about 2-5 mm in length with two antennas and was almost transparent. we later identified the stick guy to be a smooth skeleton shrimp, although we still like calling it "the stick guy".

3. We found several Moon Jellyfish.

4. Of course we saw a few beautiful lobsters. They were Northern Lobsters.

5. There were also 2 crabs that were caught on the trap. One seemed to be more of an orangish red color, while the other one was quite hideous. It looked like a rock or looked like it had been dragged through the mud. The ugly one was a Common spider crab and the other one was a Jonah Crab.

This experience was a great one and I learned a lot about the beautiful life in our city.

Stephanie

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Clockwise v counterclockwise

We were posed a very interesting question in class today. Which way does the water go down the drain in the women's restroom closest to our class today. After observing the water go down the sink drain twice, I observed that the water descended the drain clockwise.

Then we were asked if we thought that the water goes down in the same direction in the southern hemisphere to which I answered yes. I simply didn't see why it would go down in a different direction south of the equator. However, after some research, I learned that there is actually no correlation as to which direction the water flows down the drain to the hemisphere.

According to the Huffington Post, there are many other components that determine which direction the water descends. According to Dr. Paul Doherty, senior scientist at the Exploratorium in San Francisco "water can swirl either way anywhere on earth--and that which way it swirls is effectively random". (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/water-drain-equator_n_2010379.html)

In addition, I learned about the Coriolis effect which is what many people base their theory of water flowing clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere. In Loc.com's "everyday Mysteries section" an article reads, "One can find both counterclockwise and clockwise flowing drains in both hemispheres. Some people would like you to believe that the Coriolis force affects the flow of water down the drain in sinks, bathtubs, or toilet bowls. Don’t believe them! The Coriolis force is simply too weak to affect such small bodies of water". So why is it that many believe that hemisphere's determine the direction of the water flow? Because hurricanes and tornados' cyclical flows follow a counterclockwise flow in the southern hemisphere and a clockwise flow in the northern hemisphere.

Lastly, I saw an amazing video on Youtube which proves that there are so many different elements that determine the flow of water: none having to do with the hemisphere. For example, filling the sink from the left side of the sink determines which way the water flows. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kekbR9kToj8

Therefore, there is absolutely no correlation between which hemisphere the drain is located and the flow of the water going down the drain.

Stephanie Ruiz

From Snails to Whales

Welcome to Snails to Whales, Bruce Berman's blog focused on both the little and the big things that make Boston Harbor such an interesting and extraordinary place to live, work and play.

With 50 miles of protected water, four sheltered bays, seven river systems, 34 islands and a nine-foot average tide, Boston Harbor is one of the most diverse urban ecosystems in America.

This blog focuses on the flora and fauna of Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay - on the beach, the shore, and the harbor islands, and in the cleaner waters of Boston Harbor and Mass Bay - including this ecosystems most important species - people.

During the summer, it is also a place for my Boston University Students and my colleagues at Save the Harbor / Save the Bay to share their work and experiences.

Where I am coming from...

Love that clean(er) water
Learning about the Boston Harbor Cleanup from the waterway’s eyes, ears, and mouthpiece

By Brian Fitzgerald, BU Bridge

On Georges Island, Bruce Berman talks with his students about the history of the Boston Harbor Cleanup,
which is largely complete. Photo by Vernon Doucette

Bruce Berman, aboard a ferry from Boston’s Long Wharf to Georges Island, poses a question to his students: “How clean is clean enough?”

He’s talking about the water below.

It’s a brilliant July day, with the smell of salt spray in the air. The sky is clear, and so is the ocean. But there was a time when Boston Harbor wasn’t so clean, when the stench of sewage assaulted the nostrils of anyone who went near it.

Berman is the communications director for Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, a public-interest environmental advocacy organization whose mission is to help restore and protect the harbor and Massachusetts Bay. He also teaches a Metropolitan College summer course called Politics, Public Relations, and Public Policy: The Boston Harbor Cleanup.

“The Boston Harbor Cleanup is an amazing success story, and I just love to share it with students,” says Berman, noting that the harbor’s “bad old days” weren’t that long ago. Those were the days when untreated human waste, syringes, condoms, and tampon applicators routinely washed ashore. The antiquated sewage treatment plants on Deer Island and Nut Island were so poorly designed and maintained that they flooded during even mild rainstorms, sending millions of gallons of untreated waste directly into the harbor.

Since then, bacteria counts in the water have decreased by more than two-thirds. Now the harbor teems with plants and animals, and people can legally dig for clams on Carson Beach in South Boston, which was unheard of in the 1980s.

“It was one of the filthiest harbors in America, and now it’s one of the cleanest,” says Berman. “What I’m trying to impress upon students is how this incredible comeback occurred, and how business, advocacy groups, environmentalists, and government can affect the outcome of large projects such as the Boston Harbor Cleanup through negotiation.”

Paradise regained

Berman points to the left as the boat cruises by the cleanup’s centerpiece: the gargantuan white egglike tanks of the Deer Island waste treatment plant, which in 1995 replaced the antiquated facility. The plant treats an average of 350 million gallons of sewage a day.

“And what comes out of the Deer Island treatment plant?” he asks. Berman, his booming baritone competing with the roar of planes taking off from Logan Airport, has a habit of putting students on the spot to see if they’re paying attention.

“The outfall pipe,” say several simultaneously. “Treated water,” chime in a few more.

“That’s right,” he says with a smile. “The plant separates the solid and liquid waste, and it pumps the treated water through the 9.5-mile outfall pipe, which empties into Massachusetts Bay. The resulting sludge is converted to high-grade fertilizer.”

Now Berman returns to his original question: “How clean is clean enough?” There’s no quick and clear answer to this one. “It’s a question that at the end of the day the federal courts had to decide.”

In 1985, a landmark federal court case required that the harbor’s beaches be made swimmable and fishable by 2000. Save the Harbor/Save the Bay was formed the next year to raise public awareness of the $4.5 billion Boston Harbor Cleanup. Sewer ratepayers in the 43 cities and towns financing the project cried foul over the prospect of astronomically rising bills, but because of the determination of environmental advocacy groups such as Berman’s, the cleanup was largely completed on schedule.

Berman says it isn’t finished, however. There are still frequent beach closures because the counts of Enterococcus bacteria exceed the federal and state standard for swimming. The culprit: filthy storm water and sewage, much of it from leaky pipes and illegal hookups emptying into storm sewers, and then into the harbor.

“So is the harbor clean enough,” the Springfield native asks his students, “when you can’t swim in it one out of five days in the summer?”

Work to be done

Berman and his class look out from Georges Island to Gallops Island (left) and the white tanks of the waste treatment plant on Deer Island (right). Photo by Vernon Doucette

This summer the state approved one of the last parts of the cleanup: the construction, by 2011, of a 2.1-mile tunnel near the Dorchester and South Boston shorelines that will hold sewage and storm water during bad weather. It then will be pumped to Deer Island for treatment.

Berman is ecstatic over this development, the result of “tireless negotiation and consensus-building,” he says. “After 2011, we’re looking at beach closings once every five years, when there is a major storm, instead of once every five days.”

But he is not about to let his guard down. To say that he is a man obsessed with the harbor cleanup would be an understatement. Berman is also Save the Harbor/Save the Bay’s “Baywatcher,” and he lives on his 40-foot trawler Verandah. Polluters beware: if you’re discharging oil or sewage into Boston Harbor, the Baywatcher just might be watching.

He is quick to point out that his zealotry is not just on behalf of the harbor’s flora and fauna. “The harbor is for everyone,” he says. “If you’re from a working class or poor family in Boston, and you can’t afford a Cape Cod getaway in the summer, a clean harbor is important. The same is true if you’re a tourist vacationing in Boston or you happen to live in a pricey waterfront condo.”

Accordingly, Berman, who was a political consultant and contributing editor to the Phoenix newspaper before joining Save the Harbor/Save the Bay nearly 10 years ago, also teaches his students about the harbor’s role in the city’s economy. He points out that in the early 1990s, just a few ferries cruised the harbor’s waters. Today, more than 100,000 people visit its islands each summer, discovering their ecological and historic treasures.

“The best way to protect the harbor cleanup,” Berman tells his students, “is to make sure that the public has access to the resources and can see a return on its investment.”

Trevor Kosmolsick (MET’05) has lived in Boston for seven years, but until taking Berman’s course, he had never been to the waterfront. “I’ve also wanted to go camping in the area, but I never knew that you could camp on a few of the islands,” he says. “Bruce Berman is not only a great professor, but the ultimate tour guide.”

He also backs up his words with actions. Sometimes he takes off his shirt and dives in the water to demonstrate to passing boaters that it’s safe to swim. To show people on ferries that fishing is safe, he’s been known to grab one of the bluefish or striped bass he’s caught and (very carefully) plant a wet kiss on it.

“What I want everyone to understand is that investment in the environment really does pay off,” says Berman. “We’re willing to pay for a clean Boston Harbor, so we should enjoy it.”