Welcome back to the next tale of Annika's REU Adventure! This week started off with finally pulling out the ROV and learning how to use it. After lunch, Nick, Maite, Rhoda, Jordan, and I went to the OIMB dock and launched the drone into the water. We found out that it is not very easy for the organisms below the water to see in this area, including us. It was difficult to tell if you were moving the drone up or down the water column, but it was still a blast driving it around with everyone. I am excited to take it out again next week. Over the weekend, I finally got the chance to visit and fully experience Eugene. Some of the other REU's and I stayed at Alondra's house for two nights. We had a nice slumber party in her living room, all situated with some blow-up mattresses. Eugene is filled with good food, a cute downtown, and some beautiful landscapes. I really enjoyed going to the Rock Slide at Lake Creek Falls. The sun and the water were the perfect temperature, it was the first hot summer day I have had all year. It was fun to have the rivers current push you down the mossy slab of rock and into a deep and refreshing pool. The drive to and from Eugene is magnificent. We drove past many large rivers, huge trees, and very dense forests. Coming from Southern California, this is not something I typically see everyday so I really appreciate being in this landscape. When we came back from our little trip, Maite and I volunteered at the CMLC and completed our first full feed. We chopped up frozen fish and squid and distributed it to all of the critters in the tanks. After we fed the CMLC residents, we had the opportunity to help move some fish out of one of the large tanks and scrape the algae off of the glass. These fish were smart and feisty, it was hard to catch them until we drained the tank. This was my first time handling live fish larger than a goldfish, and I am glad to say that I did not drop any of them. I know you are wondering about all of the fun project updates too! This week I did some more digesting of my samples, filtering of the poop samples onto filter paper, and panning for gold (urchin microplastic poop). All of these tasks take up large chunks of time to complete... so I have been spending most of my days patiently waiting for data collection time. Next week I hope to start finding and counting pieces of microplastics, I am excited to do some work with the dissection scope!
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Annika SullivanHello blog visitors! My name is Annika Sullivan. I am from Agoura Hills, CA and have been studying at Santa Barbara City College for the last 3 years. This fall I will be attending UC Santa Barbara as an Aquatic Biology major. I have always dreamed of living in Oregon, and now I get to do so while conducting marine research at OIMB under Dr. Aaron Galloway and Dr. Reyn Yoshioka in the CTELab! Archives
August 2021
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