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Creating Awareness
Early in the morning, the MV Explorer slows to a 4 knot crawl and the breakfast crowd on the aft deck begins to speculate about the reason. Then, off the back of the ship appear two small, cylindrical mesh nets, attached to stout cords that are being towed through the water-. Someone remarks , “It’s Dan Abel and he is trolling for breakfast.”Indeed it is Semester at Sea marine biology professor Dan Abel, but he is dragging for plankton, drifting organisms that occupy the upper regions of open sea. Within an hour, the samples from the nets have been placed under a microscope with the images projected on a screen for the students in his 8 a.m. marine biology class.
Abel is not a plankton specialist, his research is focused on sharks, rays and coastal ecology. But he still gets a kick out of observing the life forms found in this early morning sampling. “Any time I see something new or unexpected, I get excited.” And the excitement is contagious. Students are huddled around the microscope awaiting their turn for a first-hand look at the samples
The purpose of this plankton-sampling exercise is simple – to create awareness. Viewed from the ship, the ocean’s water is clear, blue, and beautiful. When that same water is examined more closely, it reveals a variety of life that is invisible to the naked eye. Examining these samples in the classroom creates an awareness of the wealth of microscopic life that exists in every cubic millimeter of sea water.
Semester at Sea provided the basic tools for this exercise at Abel’s request – simple plankton nets, sample bottles, a microscope and sample preservatives. He is quick to point out that this is not any sort of quantitative or even qualitative study of plankton..
He does hope that on some future voyage, there will be a plankton specialist on board who could propose and conduct more detailed studies. From his perspective the amount of time spent on the water provides a tremendous opportunity to more thoroughly study the sea.
But for this voyage, Abel and his students will collect and examine plankton samples several additional times and by doing so gain an understand of the diversity of life that exists in these clear, blue, beautiful waters.
The purpose of this plankton-sampling exercise is simple – to create awareness. Viewed from the ship, the ocean’s water is clear, blue, and beautiful. When that same water is examined more closely, it reveals a variety of life that is invisible to the naked eye. Examining these samples in the classroom creates an awareness of the wealth of microscopic life that exists in every cubic millimeter of sea water. Semester at Sea provided the basic tools for this exercise at Abel’s request – simple plankton nets, sample bottles, a microscope and sample preservatives. He is quick to point out that this is not any sort of quantitative or even qualitative study of plankton..
He does hope that on some future voyage, there will be a plankton specialist on board who could propose and conduct more detailed studies. From his perspective the amount of time spent on the water provides a tremendous opportunity to more thoroughly study the sea.But for this voyage, Abel and his students will collect and examine plankton samples several additional times and by doing so gain an understand of the diversity of life that exists in these clear, blue, beautiful waters.