I signed up for Marine Biology 2 because I could not help but come back to the British Virgin Islands after my breathtaking trip last summer. I’m looking forward to partaking in another adventure with Dive BVI in the Islands again this summer, and tracking the growth of the coral we planted last summer. However, this week, preparing for a whole new adventure of scuba in the classroom, we learned about coral’s growth and reproduction. The second day, we put our newly found, and refreshed knowledge to use as we separated into groups and created “PSA” videos with our partners about specific issues associated with coral. Day three, we researched mangroves independently, in preparation for our Kayak trip through the mangrove forests near “Salt Island” in our upcoming trip. Marine Biology 1 groups, in hopes to be enlightened about mangroves, separated into groups and were taught by us (MB2 students) about different types of mangroves, as they were taking a quiz over the material shortly. On day 4 we took part in an activity that pretended we were fined for hurting coral when we did transplanting last year. On the last day, Doc taught us how to replicate/locate DNA via PCR methods in the lab in order to identify certain forms of bacteria among different types of fish populations. Altogether, it was a very productive week in the classroom, an even better start than last year’s class; I cannot wait for what next week has to offer.
