Relationships Among Marine Organisms

Marine Food Web In Marine Bio this week our class did a project on a food web of marine life. In this activity i played an anchovy. The anchovy eats other smaller organisms but is mainly food for squid and sharks. If the anchovy was to disappear from the food web then the squid population would shrink a lot, while the organisms that anchovies eat would grow a lot. Phytoplankton In class we also did another assignment where we viewed diatoms through a microscope.By doing this lab we learned a lot about diatoms. We learned that diatoms have a very good reflective quality about them. We also learned that diatoms are used in toothpaste, filters, pesticides. Energy Flow There are different tropic levels and as you go up the food chain you find that there are bigger and bigger animals that are at the top of the food chain. Human Impacts Humans can disturb the marine food web by over hunting. If they over hunt one food item then it could upset the whole balance of the food web and cause one organism to perhaps go extinct. This would cause a collapse in the whole system.If one organism goes extinct then that could cause a massive growth in another population of organisms and then that causes a whole disturbance within the system.

Final Assignment

I had taken oceanography this year to try and learn something new and I was not disappointed. When I first saw that this class was offered it intrigued me because it had been a subject that had interested me for a long time. I wanted to take this class because I wanted to learn about the world around me and learn more about the area in which I live. In oceanography this year I learned a lot of different things that I had not known before. I had learned all about the tides, marine life, explorers, as well as many other things. There are things that I could have worked on however. I have could have applied myself more, especially when it came to doing labs. I could have challenged my abilities more and worked a little bit harder. I would do all the labs and for the most part complete then but I could have put a lot more detail into doing them. Another thing that I could have added to is the blogs. I completed all the blogs but I could have put a lot more detail into them. I also could have added more pictures to my blogs to add a visual element to them. As far as recognizing my individual learning style I prefer to work independently. It is not to say that I do not prefer to work in groups it is just that I like to work by myself even more. When I work by myself I can do things the way that I want to do them and go at my own pace. When I work in a group I feel pressured to keep and I also have to compromise and cannot do things the way that I want to. Another way that I like to learn is by lectures. Although it may seem boring I learn better through lectures than I do by going through book work and taking notes. Overall, I did a good job applying myself and feel that I had a good semester. Communication is another important thing that is involved in this class. It is important to communicate with one another especially in this class. During labs it is usually required to that we work with more than one other person so it is very important that one has the ability to communicate properly and convey ideas to one another. If a person cannot convey their ideas to the other members of the group then it will be very difficult for those people to thrive within in the group. It is also very important to communicate so that everyone in the group will get the same information and the same data. It is also important that my ideas are well organized and clear before I pass them in. In order to get my ideas to be well organized and clear I have to thoughtfully do my work and work well with the other people that are in my class. Overall in this class I have learned a lot about the ocean by doing many assignments and many different worksheets. There were many different worksheets that I did that involved many different aspects of oceanography. One thing that I worked on was a project about explorers. I had to research Chinese exploration and then come up with a presentation on the whole thing. The whole project taught me about early exploration as well as early sea travel. I also believe that I demonstrated a lot of independence by doing this project. It was up to only me to research this topic and then put it into a presentation to show the class. Another assignment that I worked in this class was an assignment where I was given a specific region on the globe and I had to look up what the wind patterns were going into and out of that region. The region that I had was Manchester, England. I learned a lot about how wind patterns and ocean currents effect that area. Overall, I learned a lot about how the ocean effects the world around the world around me and how the ocean works in general. I had always lived near the ocean but it was not till recently that I learned all about. I am very glad that I was able to take this class and I feel that I did a good job with handling this class over the course of the semester.

Moon and Tides Connections

In this activity we had to graph the tides and moon phases over a certain month. People who would need this information would be fishermen, sailors, or even scientist. The phases of the moon are what causes tidal phases to be so extreme. Sea level is the level of the Earth where the see lies. It is higher than Mean Lower Low Water.The tides are aproximately eight hours apart. The morning high tide does occur at the same time it is different by a few minutes each day. It changes due to the position of the moon each day. During springtide the moon is in the full moon phase so its gravity pull is at the fullest. During neap tides the moon is in the new moon phase. The two high tides are not at the same time. For animals and plants the tides fill the estuary and flow out leaving it open for animals.The storm will make the tide effect a lot stronger.It is probably best to go clamming at low tide. That is what I learned from doing this activity.

Tears of an Ocean

In this lab my classmates and I did many test with water with different salinity measurements. It was our job to use a hydrometer and thermometer to determine what the salinity for some of the samples were.

Build a Hydrometer

In class we did a lab that involved building a hydrometer. A hydrometer measures salinity which is the amount of dissolved salt in a body of water. If salt is added to a body of water the hydrometer will float higher because there is more salt within the body of water.The addition of salt adds density to the water therefore things float more. That is why it is easier to float in the ocean rather than a swimming pool because the ocean contains a higher salinity so it is more dense. Density is the amount of mass that a certain object has. Another factor that can effect the salinity of seawater is the temperature. This is because the water heats up and therefore becomes less dense. These are the things that I learned while conducting this lab.