The idea of a Gap Year is to take a step back to view the big picture. To take a step back to look at where you’ve come from, where you’ve gone and see where you’d like to go. To take a step back so you can take the right steps forward.
The program here came to an end last week, culminating in the students Demonstration of Learning and Graduation ceremony. Over the past nine weeks Eryn, Ryan and Jordan have made profound change in their own lives and of those surrounding them.
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Whitney Knowles is a sophomore at The College of The Bahamas, majoring in Small Island Sustainability with a focus in Marine Science. Initially, Whitney worked at CEI as an Aquaculture and Aquaponics intern, followed by a stint as an Educational Programs Apprentice from February to August, but now she has taken on the role of Aquaculture and Turtles Research Apprentice.
Her current duties include grading tilapia, organizing feeding rates and schedules, collecting fry, getting involved in outreach with DCMS, setting BRUVS for turtle research, tagging and releasing turtl,es and habitat mapping. Whitney’s future goal is to leave CEI with all the knowledge and experience that she has gained, and apply it to her daily life, and to inspire others to do the same. Next summer she is planning on resuming her education at the College of The Bahamas, then moving on to attend Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada to study Marine Biology and fisheries conservation. Good luck to her in the future, and we are lucky to have her talents a work right now at CEI!
by With every researcher at CEI always on the go, managing their own research projects, they hardly have time to get a feel for other projects going on at the institute. Luckily this is changing, as once a month all researchers will come together and take part in a different research project. The goal is for each CEI researcher to have a good understanding of all of the great research being done at CEI.
This past week the team assisted fellow researcher Kristal Ambrose with her beach plastic project. The team managed to survey two beaches for the long term project; Kristal aims to determine how plastic moves over time in between beaches here in South Eleuthera. The CEI team helped contribute to Kristal’s growing dataset, learning new survey methods, and getting firsthand exposure to the plastic pollution that threatens the beauty and health of the island. A good time was had by all. Stay tuned for the research team’s next adventure!
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Miss Kristal Ambrose, CEI’s Marine Plastic Pollution Specialist, and Tiffany Gray, CEI’s Lead Outdoor Educator, made a visit to 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students at North Eleuthera Primary to talk about Pollution and Plastics. Students had a blast learning about some of the threats to their marine resources, as well as acting out the North Pacific garbage patch! Kristal and Tiffany also had the opportunity to speak with the 2nd grade class briefly before heading out to Spanish Wells.
Spanish Wells was a successful visit as our team checked in with the 12 grade geography class to assist them with a comparative coral reef study that they will be conducting for the Bahamas General Certificate Secondary Examination, a national exam for local high schools. CEI will be continuing on with outreach efforts in North Eleuthera on Oct 17 where students from both schools will get to visit mangroves and coral reefs.
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Dr. Bill Louda (PI) and Aaron Schultz, a co-PI and director of the Cape Eleuthera Institute, visited 3 marine laboratory facilities between August 13-18, 2013. The major part of this trip was a visit (Aug. 13-16) to the Central Caribbean Marine Institute (CCMI) on the Island of Little Cayman just south of Cuba. Following their return to Miami Florida, they then visited two labs in the Florida Keys (post to follow).
CCMI (LCRC) is built very close to the shore line on the northern side of Little Cayman. The outer reef (~ 150 – 175 yards offshore) rising out of hundreds of fathoms of water was effective in decreasing hurricane storm surge several times and it is predicted that future storms, without the influence of sea-level rise, will only push saltwater up under these structures and not into the first floor level.
The lab area occupies about one-third of the first floor of the yellow building. The rectangular 1/3 of that floor is itself divided into 3 separate labs, each about 10 x 20 feet (this is from memory, not measurements). In this way, wall and bench linear footage (space) is maximized and lab functions are segregated. This concept should roll into the plans for laboratory upgrades / building at CEI.
Thanks to Dr. Carrie Manfrino, CCMI President and Director of Research for coordinating the visit. Continue reading
by This fall the gap year team has undertaken the task of completing Fall 2013 shallow water conch surveys. Once complete this data will be a part of a larger effort to conserve this economically and culturally important species.
The sites we are surveying are in the Bight of Eleuthera; there are 18 sites total, and so far 10 have been completed. They involve snorkeling three transects, each 30 meters in length and 2 meters wide, and counting and measuring the conch we find. So far the juveniles are pulling through, and almost 100% of the conch found have been juveniles, demonstrating the environment still able to support the nursery for this species.
The surveys prove to be quite exciting, and we have spotted a plethora of other species while surveying (such as lemon sharks), and there are a lot of Echinoderms who share their habitat with the queen conch. During the surveys we are often fighting strong currents, dodging an array of jellyfish, and dealing with the hot sun. However, as tough as these times are we know we are doing something awesome for this gastropod.
by Check out this video to see what the lionfish team has been up to this fall!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EbQE-qp33JM
The start of the semester has been an extremely busy and exciting time for the lionfish program. In November, Dr. Jocelyn Curtis-Quick, head of the team, will be heading to Texas to present her work on lobster-lionfish displacement at the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute conference. The purpose of this study is to determine whether lionfish are displacing spiny lobsters in critical habitats and what this means for the economically important lobster fishery. We were also pleased to welcome gap year student Ryan Hodges to our crew, who will be working with us for the next four weeks. His extra set of hands is needed considering we have over 150 hours of video to analyze before the GCFI conference! Continue reading
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On Friday, September 27, students from Deep Creek Middle School (DCMS) met with staff from the Cape Eleuthera Institute (CEI) at Paige Creek to discuss mangrove ecosystems. Tiffany Gray, lead outdoor educator for CEI, led the eighth grade science class through an interactive lesson covering mangrove identification, their importance and threats to the ecosystem.
Stacey Dorman and Kylie Bloodsworth, CEI Flats Ecology interns, also gave the students an overview of research carried out by the institute and how mangrove ecosystems might be affected by climate change. The students then snorkeled up the creek system, taking note of important biota residing in the mangroves, such as juvenile barracuda, schoolmaster snapper, checkered puffer and juvenile lemon sharks. The DCMS students happily came away from class with the knowledge that mangroves are important ecosystems worth researching and protecting!
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