What a difference a month makes. Back in April I brought my marine biology class to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for our end of semester field trip. We saw lots of surf clam shells on the beach then, and some arks, but not a lot of other diversity in shells. And the month [...]
I recently returned from my latest class field trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I am fortunate to teach an upper level marine bio course at Ashland University in Ohio. Yes, Ohio. My students can see live marine specimens in our saltwater aquarium, and lots of collected organisms from the Atlantic and Pacific [...]
It took us almost 15 hours in our two vans to get from Ashland, Ohio to Oregon Inlet, but we had some great BBQ (Currituck BBQ) on the way and a quick stop at walmart for the camping gear we left behind. But we are here, tents are up, my students had their first trip [...]
End of the semester teaching and a slew of chair duties have kept me away from the blog for a few weeks. But it is now 4:18 am and I am off with a colleague and 10 students for my semi-annual field trip to Oregon Inlet, North Carolina in the Outer Banks for my Marine [...]
I recently purchased two Flip video cameras for my Senior Capstone biology majors to use when shooting 60 second science videos later this semester. During this past week of spring break I took it on myself to give one a shakedown cruise to see if the built in editing software would do the trick for [...]
Chesapeake Bay watermen
Pollution, nutrient runoff and overfishing have destroyed the crab and oyster harvest of the Chesapeake Bay. Excessive algal growth from the overabundant nutrients produces low oxygen “dead zones” and prevents sunlight from reaching sea grasses on the bottom. But another casualty has been the local watermen culture. The uniqueness of [...]
Crabbing in Virginia
When the Chesapeake Bay crab fishery was declared a federal disaster the Comonwealth of Virginia was promised $10 million in disaster aid. Virginia has decided to use some of that money to purchase back crab licenses to ease the financial burden on local watermen. The state had already planned to [...]
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