Marine Bio Year Review

This semester in Marine Bio has been a very interesting semester. I have learned a lot about marine life as well as the ocean. I believe it is important to learn about the ocean since it makes up seventy percent of our world. The semester before I took oceanography, so I think it was very helpful to learn about the ocean first then learn about the creatures that live within it. I thought that the unit we did on algae was very interesting and it was fascinating to learn just how important algae is to the planet. Another unit that I enjoyed was the dissection unit. I thought it was interesting to see the inner working of some of these marine animals. My final thing that I enjoyed was the short unit that we did on sharks. Sharks are one of my favorite animals so it was neat that we got to spend some time on them and learn a little bit more about their species. Overall, this was a very good semester class and I am very glad that I was able to take it.

Alternative Assignment

Instead of going on the trip I stayed back at the school and was given an optional assignment to complete. The assignment was to read a bunch of different blogs that were published by the New England Aquarium. One of the blogs that really stuck out to me was the blog on the marine rescue team. It was interesting to see how the aquarium would take in sick animals or injured animals and nurse them back to health. It was also interesting to see all of the different procedures that they would preform on these animals.


Another blog that really interested me was the penguin blog. It was interesting to see how the penguins almost immediately went back to their old ways after being out of their habitat for so long. On the blog it said that the penguins had never been out of the exhibit for so long and they seemed to flow right back into their normal everyday routine.

Tsunami Wall

In class we watched a short video about how Japan is building large sea walls along their ocean to help in case another tsunami occurs. The walls are extremely high and will act as a last ditch effort to save people from a tsunami. A lot of locals are very upset that they are putting these walls up because they feel that it is separating them from the ocean. Many of the towns that the wall is going near depend on the ocean as a way of life. They depend on it for tourism as well as bringing in business to their shops. The walls can also act as a problem for local ecosystems. I personally feel that they should invest more money in tsunami research and invest money in ways to detect the tsunamis sooner. Putting up a wall seems very drastic and I feel there are more ways to deal with this problem than just putting up a massive wall.

Bio-Geo Timeline

In class we worked on a project in class and we were assigned a certain time period. My partner Phil and I were given the Jurassic time period. This time period lasted from about 200 million years ago to 140 million years ago. This time period was the peak of the dinosaur era. There was also a large variation of plants. Since there was 20 percent oxygen in the atmosphere most of the organisms that existed back then grew to very large sizes. Also the landscape of the earth was different back then. Instead of having the seven individual continents like we do today, there was only one major continent called Pangaea. Although there was one big continent there was a little separation between what is now South America and Africa. The Jurassic Period was the height of the dinosaur era and I learned a lot about it by doing this assignment.

Plankton Decline

Yesterday in class I read three articles about the decline of plankton in our oceans. The articles talked of how there used to be an abundance of plankton and now their numbers are slowly shrinking. Many scientist believe that is a part of global warming. Since plankton tend to do worse in warm oceans the change in climate temperature is causing a great deal of harm to their numbers. Plankton are very important because during their photosynthesis, they take in carbon dioxide and turn it into oxygen just like plants. With more plankton there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which leads to global warming. Plankton also play a vital role in the ecosystem, since they act as food for many of the larger animals.


Minogue, Kristen. "Critical Ocean Organisms Are Disappearing." science/aaas. American Association for the Advancement of Science, 28 July 2010. Web. 12. Feb. 2014.

University of New South Wales. "Algirith finds missing phytoplankton in Southern Ocean". Algorithm finds missing phytoplankton in southern ocean. PhysOrg, 18 Sept. 2013.Web. 12. Feb. 2014.

Kirby, Alex. "Plankton Will Oceans Suffer as Oceans Warm." Climate news network. Climate news network, 8 Sept. 2013. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.

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.