Tide Pooling: My Final Reflection on the Reefs

It seemed like there was death everywhere on the reef where I should have seen life.  The brilliant colors in books, the swimming fish from advertisements for the Bahamas- there were barely any to be found.

Occasionally, a member of our group would marvel at a baracuda or a parrot fish.  Sometimes, we would eye a few maze-like brain coral living in a small area.  But mostly, all I saw was algae.  Turtle grass would float into my hair or stick to my wetsuit. The waves mixed the sand up to obscure my vision of anything worth noting.  It looked dirty to me even though, from above the surface, everything looked clear and blue.

Aren't coral reefs supposed to be the "rainforests of the sea?"  Where were the colors and all the life that the reef should be teeming with.

With nothing to compare these reefs to, I had no sense of loss.  

Then, one night, in the dark, our team went tidal pooling.  The tide was headed out and ocean water settled in the crevices of large rocks on the beach.  I saw life that had been hidden from me.

Spiny sea urchins clustered under small awnings in the rock.  Anemones swayed their short tentacles.  I could see a small round hole, its mouth, in the center of its spherical body.  

One miniature tide pool hosted a couple dozen tiny hermit crabs.  I crouched low to observe them, pointing my headlamp in their direction.  I watched, fascinated, as they crawled carefully about the pool.  After a few long moments, I saw something interesting; it looked like bubbles were coming in spurts from the rock. 

"I need a science person!"  I called to the teammates.  "What's this?  Look at the bubbles.  It looks like something is blowing air down there."

After studying hard for a minute, I heard the diagnosis, "You found an octopus!" "Look there's his arm." "And there's his eye."

As I moved away from the group that was gathering to see, I thought about how alive the reef really was.  How much of this life that I'm seeing now had been missed due to my unappreciative attitude towards the reef?

The next day, when we entered the water to take our data, I found so much life that I hadn't noticed before.  Even in the midst of all the death I was witnessing, I was finally aware of the beauty still present in what had survived.

San Salvador's Community

What is a community? We have talked about this in class many times before. A community is where a person lives, works, and plays. It is where you pray and where you get the things you need to survive. In your community, you see schools, grocery stores, fire departments, churches, and many other important places. In your community, there are many community helpers. You see nurses, dentists, pastors, construction workers and many other community helpers.

On San Salvador, the people live in a community. There are about 1,000 people on the island. That is not very many at all! So far, I have seen a few things that are important to life in this community. I have seen churches, government buildings, one small grocery store, a few restaurants, and a bunch of small, bright-colored houses.

The photo I posted is of the downtown area. The grocery store is that orange-looking building right outside. Did you notice that there are no stoplights? There are barely any cars. In fact, the biggest road here goes all the way around the island, but you won’t see many cars on it. I went for a 30 minute run on that road yesterday and only saw about 7 cars! Can you imagine running down the highway in Chicago for 30 minutes and only seeing 7 cars?

I have posted a photo of a church and a photo of a house. For your next comment, I want you to compare your community in Chicago to the community in San Salvador. Write two sentences about how the communities are different. Write one sentence about how the communities are the same. Mr. Tayleor will post your comments onto the blog!

For your next comment, I want you to compare your community in Chicago to the community in San Salvador. Write two sentences about how the communities are different. Write one sentence about how the communities are the same. Mr. Tayleor will post your comments onto the blog!

I will see you on Monday.

Love,
Ms. Diemer

Structure photos

Here are some photos of the artificial reef structures that we made the other day. These might help the coral grow back. See my last blog for more information.



In the first photo, we are pouring in the concrete. In the second photo, our structures are dry. We need to wait for the water to get less choppy so we can actually drill them into the reef! I hope we can do it before I leave.

Helping the Coral Grow

I am so sorry that I got cut off from you during our video conference. The internet here does not work very well. I hope you were able to learn a little bit more about the coral yesterday. You had some great questions. I will try my best to answer them.

Yesterday, it was too windy to do our research on the coral. When it is windy, the water gets choppy and we bounce around a lot when we swim. It makes it hard to write down any information we gather about the coral. By the way, do you know what scientists call the information they collect? It is called data. We are doing “data collection” on the coral here.

Yesterday, instead of collecting data, we did an activity to help grow new coral. Our head scientist, John Rollino, says that life in the water needs structure to survive. Do you remember the shipwreck in Finding Nemo where the sharks lived? That’s an example of structure. When I say structure, I mean that there is something hard for the coral to cling to. Fish also like structure because it gives them a place to hide from bigger fish that might eat them.

We tried to create more structure for the reef. We are pouring concrete into a mold we made out of sand and recycled materials. After a few hours, the concrete dried and we checked out our creations. The finished product looks like the bottom of a table. We are going to flip it upside down and put it near the coral reefs. It will look like an underwater concrete tree. Can you picture it in your head? In a few months, we are hoping some coral grows on it. We will have to write letters to John Rollino and see how the structures are doing in April or May!

For your comment today, I want you to do some predictions about the people on this island. How do you think their community is different than yours? Do you think they have the same kind of houses as you do? What kind of important places do you think you might find here? The next time you hear from me, I will tell you about the people on San Salvador Island.

I love you and miss you!

Love,
Ms. Diemer

Coral Math!

Hi Mr. Diehl’s CJA students!

Mr. Diehl has probably already told you that I am in the Bahamas helping scientists study the coral. We are snorkeling almost every day and collecting data. We are trying to determine how much coral dies each season and if any of it is growing back. The scientists here are particularly interesting in something called “coral bleaching.” When a coral is bleached, it looks like part of it is becoming bright white. Maybe you can find a picture of it on the internet. Google “coral bleaching” and check under “images.”

When a coral is bleached, that means that something is seriously wrong. The scientists here believe that bleaching is caused by the affects of global warming. The coral is being stressed and starts to bleach. When bleaching occurs, the coral has a good chance of dying.

Now you know why we are doing our research, but you don’t know how. This is where math becomes important. We are going to check out three places where coral grows and count how much bleaching we see. However, the places we are researching are 40 meters wide and 200 meters in length. If we looked at every coral it would be very inefficient. Scientists have to use math to help them.

Researchers have found that an efficient way to collect data on a large area of land or water is to collect data only over designated transects. A “transect” is a small area that represents the entire area. It takes us about 1-2 hours to collect data on one transect. We work in teams to count all the bleaching of coral we see in three transects. The scientists say that, by collecting data on only these three transects, they can determine the amount of bleaching over the entire 40 m by 200 m area.

Now, Mr. Diehl told me that you students were very smart mathematicians. You are probably a lot better than me at math. I have a math question for you that I just can’t figure out:

If each transect is 10 m by 1 m and we study three transects. What percentage of the area did we study?

Also, do you think this is a good representation for the entire 40 m by 200 m area? Why or why not?

Send me your comments. I would love to hear what some smart students think!

Where is Ms. Diemer?

Greetings from San Salvador! San Salvador is an island in the Bahamas. Click here to see a map of where I am right now.

Do you know why I am so far away from school right now? I'm not taking a vacation. I am studying coral. Coral is an animal that lives in the ocean. Some of you may have seen beautiful photos of the coral. Here, in San Salvador, there used to be many beautiful coral. Now, it is like a coral graveyard. The coral are dying off. Do you have any idea what might be causing these beautiful animals to die off? The scientists here are trying to figure that out. I want you to send me your ideas about why the coral is dying. Scientific predictions are called hypotheses.

For the first graders, Mrs. Kennedy will give you some paper to write about it. Mr. Tayleor will post some of your ideas on my blog.

Check out this photo of me in my wetsuit! Do I look funny to you? I am wearing my snorkeling mask and a snorkel just like I showed the first graders at school. The first graders thought I was going to wear SCUBA gear. Check out a photo of someone wearing SCUBA gear here. Can you tell the difference between SCUBA gear and my snorkel gear?

SCUBA gear wouldn't make any sense to wear because the coral we are studying only grows close to the surface of the water. These corals need to be near the surface so the tiny plants that help them survive need sunlight to live. Without the tiny plants, these corals would not grow. Also, these corals need warmer temperatures. As you travel further from the surface of the water, the temperature gets colder. If you stay closer to the surface, the temperature is just right for these corals to grow.

I miss you all so much and I hope you are learning lots with Mrs. Kennedy!

Love,

Ms. Diemer

To Ms. Noonan's St. Malachy students

Hi middle schoolers!

Ms. Noonan has probably told you that I am studying the coral reefs in the Bahamas. Right now, I am on a small island that is a bit east of Miami, Florida. It is called San Salvador. I am working with scientists who want to learn what is causing the coral here to become diseased.

This is the first time in my life that I have ever collected real scientific data. I have heard that you collect data all the time in your experiments with Ms. Noonan. I wonder if your data collecting is anything like what the scientists in the Bahamas are doing.

In this photo that I posted, you can see one of the tools we are learning to study the coral. Today, we learned how to use this tool on dry land. This is called a PI (point-intercept) Frame. Does it remind you of anything you have seen in math or science?

When the research team and I get into the water tomorrow, we will be randomly dropping one of these frames on a coral reef. Do you see the points where the ropes are crossed? We have to record what kind of reef object is lying directly under each point. We must mark whether we see:

- hard coral (like elkhorn_coral)

- soft coral (like dead man's finger coral): they usually move with the current

- algae

- sponge

- sand

- rock

- other (tire, plastic bag)

We are going to drop our frame in about 30 random places and record data.

The scientific researchers here have collected 17 years of research on the coral here. They are trying to collect data on how much coral has been killed and whether or not the coral will grow back. They are also trying to find easy ways for communities to help their reefs stay healthy on an Earth going through climate change.

If you have any questions or comments about the work I'm doing here, please post a comment. Hopefully, I will be able to respond to them and post them for other students to see.