Matthew Hellinghausen '13

Take a moment and imagine what life would be like if you didn't have a backbone. Think of all the things you couldn't do. Imagine never being able to sit up straight, lift a heavy object, or have a definite body shape. That's what today was about, invertebrates. This group of animals makes up over 99% of the animal kingdom,...

Friday's class was all about the different levels of the ocean. If you know a little about the air above us, you've probably heard that the sky is broken up into several different levels such as the stratosphere. The ocean is the same way, and as you enter different levels of the ocean, the organisms that exist there change...

Yesterday, we discussed some of the things that go on physically in the ocean. Some of these things, like waves, currents, and the chemical makeup of water all effect how marine life can move, function, and survive in the ocean. Currents help circulate the water and help animals which cannot move (e.g. plankton) travel. I also learned that the...

Today's discussion wasn't about the ocean, but rather what lies beneath it. Down the the very core of our earth, the makeup of the earth is key to the formation of our oceans. Our inner core is about as hot as the surface of the sun, but remains a solid because of the extreme pressure that it's under. It's...

After a brutal introductory class, we took our first steps today in becoming marine biologists. Dr. Gruninger refreshed our memories as he overviewed the scientific method. Using his own experiments from his study at Texas A&M, Dr. Gruninger showed how he took a simple question about the natural world and turned it into a controlled, organized experiment which used data...

Hi my name is Matt Hellinghausen! I am very excited to be a part of the first Marine Biology course here at Jesuit. I am excited to be immersed in a unique learning environment that is far different from the traditional classroom setting. There are two things that I want to get out of this class: 1) to effectively use...