Beach Profiling

OooOooOooo now off to the good 'ole beach profiling! What is beach profiling? The technical term is that it is the intersection of a beach's ground surface with a vertical plane perpendicular to the shoreline. This just means that beach profiling is recording the surface of the beach. We want to do this because wind, rain, waves and other factors contribute to how the beach can change throughout seasons. It can create the beach to have more sand, less sand, bigger dunes or no dunes at all. Calculating it is a good thing, fore it lets us see how the weather and other elements can effect the beach and how quickly it did. It helps us understand how vastly the beaches surface can change in an amount of time. 


In science class, we tested this ourselves. To do this, we needed the following materials:

• Data Sheet-To collect the distances, height, location, as well as recording the visuals of the area. 
• GPS Navigation System-To get the exact location of our profiling spot. 
• Compass- To calculate the exact degrees of our profiling area.
• Camera-To take pictures of our beach profiling experience. 
• Transect Tape-
• Rise and Run Tools

 Our procedure was this:

1. Go to location with materials.
2. Once at your location, find the latitude and longitude coordinates of your dune using your GPS. Record these on your data sheet as "Point A."
3. Then, lay your transect tape starting from that point all the way to the waterline. Check to make sure it is perpendicular to the waterline.
4. After, hold the compass tool at "Point A"to find out the direction in degrees of the transect line you just laid out. Record this on your data sheet as well.
5. Place the run tool on the ground at Point A along the transect tape. Looking at the level tool on the run tool, make sure it is level with the ground. 
6. Now take the rise tool and place it at the end of the run tool, level, on the ground and aligned with the transect tape as well. This is "Point B."
7. Look were the rise tool intersects with the run tool and record it as the rise between Point A and Point B. If the dune tilts upwards (going uphill), then the number is negative. If the dune is sloping downwards (going downhill), then it is a positive number. 
8. During each of your point's areas you should record any distinctive features around. 
9. Now take the foot of the rise tool and put it at the end of the run tool. Keep doing this till you reach the "foot" of the beach (where the beach dips) and past the shoreline/wrackline.

Here are some pictures of us beach profiling!

Jenna and I helping Max and Katie stay right on the transect tape!

Me collecting data onto our data sheet

Katie Schweiner and Max finding the rise and run of the beach

Sand

Another day, another unit. Now we are learning and putting our attention to beaches and their sand. How did their sand come about? What are they made of? Why? There are many questions in this field and we are getting closer and closer to finding them out first hand. To do so, we created a new lab. The question driving this experiment is: Which beaches in south Maui have biogenic sand, and which have detrital sand? For this question, our task is to find two beaches each. Biogenic sand means that the sand was formed by life processes, meaning it may either be constituents or secretions of plants or animals. Detrital is loose fragments or grains that have been worn away from rock. The beaches I chose to identify were Oneuli Black Sand Beach and Makena Big Beach.

I hypothesized that Oneuli Black Sand Beach is detrital because there are rock cliffs and coral all surrounding the coved area. The sand on that beach is rough, like bits and pieces of rock, and dark in color. I think that Makena Big Beach is biogenic because of the texture and size of it's sand. The sand is very smooth, is super tiny particles, and light in color.

The materials we need for this testing:

• Pencil and Paper for documenting
• Camera 
• Cup to collect sand in
• Vinegar
• Pipette
• Safety Goggles
• Beaker(s)

Procedure:

1. Pick which beaches you think are detrital and which are biogenic in south Maui
2. Go to those beaches. 
3. Make observations of the area and the beach you are observing and write them down. Do this either in a journal or on a piece of paper. 
4. With your cups, collect some sand from each spot
5. Once back to your experiment area, put on your safety goggles! This is very important to protect your eyes.
6. Take one sample of sand and pour one layer of it into a beaker, enough to cover the bottom.
7. Then, suck vinegar into the pipette
8. Squeeze the vinegar out of the pipette and into the beaker with the sand
9. If the sand makes a crackling sound, that means it is biogenic, but if the sand does nothing and is just wet sand, then that means it is detrital.
10. Repeat steps four through eight for the rest of your sand samples

Aerial Views of Each Beach:

Oneuli Black Sand Beach

Makena Big Beach

On April 11th we visited both beach spots. There we collected our sand samples and took down our observations. At Oneuli Black Sand Beach, I observed that the beach was small and on the one side of it was a big cliff. The color of the sand was predominantly black but once you looked closer, it was a mix of whites, browns, reds, oranges, and beiges. Much of it resembled the color and texture of the cliff. One other thing about this beach is that the reef are alive, as apposed to Makena Big Beach where the reef was mainly dead. My observations at Big Beach were different. The beach was very big and the sand was very light in color. Just like at Black Sand Beach, Big Beach's sand also has hints of different colors in it. Colors like browns, beiges, whites, oranges, and some specks here and there of black. There was a similar cliff at Big Beach like at Black Sand, but it seemed to be too far away to be causing the sand to be the way it is.

Here are some photos of our sand collecting!

Big Beach

Big Beach

Mr. Marggraf Teaching Us How to Observe the Sand

Black Sand Beach

Mr. Marggraf Observing Black Beach's Sand

Once we got back into the lab, we tested the sand. When I put some of Big Beach's sand in a beaker and added the vinegar, it bubbled and made a crackling noise. These sensory observations were evidence that this sand was biogenic. Something a little similar but mostly a different experience, was testing the Black Sand Beach's sand. We put it into a beaker and then when we added the vinegar, the sand did not bubble, it was mostly just wet sand. With this, we thought that the sand was detrital, and for the most part it was, but then we started to hear something. It was a very faint crackling sound from the black sand. Although we were confused on what to call it, we came to the conclusion that the Black Sand Beach's sand was in fact detrital with a little part of it being biogenic. 

Although this lab was shorter than they usually are, I really liked it and also learned things that I had not know before. Before, I did not even realize that the beaches were so important and that they undergo some harmful things from constructions and storms. The thing that surprised me the most with this lab was when the Black Sand Beach's sand crackled but did not bubble. I was not expecting that. Some possible sources of error that we DID go through and COULD have gone through to change the results were: putting to much vinegar in the sand, we could have collected the sand in a weird part of the beach in which the sand is not usually like that, and we could have passed by the subtle crackling noise in the Black Sand tester.  

Whale Behavior Observation

A new experiment we are doing in science class is observing whales. We are to observe everything about them such as how far out they are in the ocean, how many their are, how many adults and how many calfs, their behaviors in the waters, and other things observed. Each person in the class made their own research question and hypothesis that they would like to test out.

The information that I would like to know about was how the whales behaved. My question was this:

Is there more whale activity at the beginning of the season or the end?

My hypothesis that I have created was that I think the whales will be more active towards the end of the whale season because they will naturally get more familiar with the area they are living/swimming in. Also, there will be newborns that will probably feel "shy" and getting to know their habitat, and I feel they will become more knowledgeable and comfortable towards the end of the season.

The first chance I got to observe and test this hypothesis was at McGregor's Point. At this spot, we collected our first data. I thought that there was going to be more activity from the whales, honestly. It was okay though because I did see a lot of spouts, dives, and one (sort of) breach! Out in the ocean I looked at mothers and calfs together, along with males in groups of a bunch of whales. I looked through the clinometer my partner and I made to locate the angle at which the whales were and they were normally within the 80 to 90 degrees. I saw that the whales were also moving within a southeast direction. My favorite part about this experience was noticing all the different whales and seeing sea turtles, along with a mantaray out in the water. The most challenging part about this spot was finding the correct angle when we used our clinometer. It kept showing our whales at 90 degrees but we knew that it was not an accurate answer so we had to keep trying. Observing from this point, to me, wasn't THE best but it was a very cool starting point! I cannot wait till we can observe the whales on our whale watch!

Here are the pictures from our first watch!

This is the lighthouse or watchtower at McGreggors Point.

Kahanulani Mina spotting whales through our clinometer and determining the angle.

Hard to see, but it is a whale and a spout.

Determining the angle and then the distance of the whales using the clinometer is not hard, just follow this procedure:

1. Spot your whale (Picture three above).
2. Once spotted, look through the eyepiece on the top of the clinometer straight at the whale. Do not move. Let a partner look at the angle shown on your clinometer by the string and weight (As seen in picture two above).
3. Write record the angle. You will need it in order to determine the distance of the whale (s). 
4. Next, find on your GPS the height of elevation at which you currently are at when spotting the whale. Write it down. 
5. Now, plug in your answers into this formula: Distance= Elevation x Tan(Degrees). There you will get your distance.
• For Example:
• If you have 85 degrees as your angle on your clinometer, and the GPS shows your height at 100 feet, your equation would look like this: Distance= 100ft x tan(85)
• Calculate it, and your answer would be: Distance= 1143.0 Feet (away from you)

Other cool whale photos!

(not my photos)

http://www.whalewatchmaui.com/images/breach18.jpg

http://www.whaletrust.org/kids_korner/images/humpback_female-and-calf2.jpg

http://martywolff.cdn3.mirahost.com/public/uploads/content/10/calf.jpg

On the 2nd of March 2011, we went on our second observation adventure, a whale watch! This gave me plenty of whales to observe and the range of activity was way better than McGregor’s Point. This data helped me conclude and put the two data's together creating this graph:

This graph is showing how the whale activity observed was greater towards the end of the season (March) than it was in the beginning. The levels represent their activity with one being the lowest like swimming, spouting, and diving and going all the way up to level four activity which is breaching.

The possible sources of error that I could have come across in this experience was: the incorrect correlation of pod types, direction of travel, time being inaccurate, how we were at two different data points, one we were going to the whales, other we were trying to find them. 

Here are some pictures from the whale watch! 

Whale Watch Ready!

Whale Spout

Whale Tail

Mr. Marggraf
Our AWESOME Science Teacher

Looking back on the whale watch I remember that it was a great experience. I liked how we actually go out to study the animals up close and also had a guide with us as well. There were many whales to observe and many activities. It was really neat way to learn more about whales. 

M-to the-A-to the ...rine Phyla Lab

After our Geocaching unit, our class moved onto a different adventure, the discoveries of tide pools and marine phyla! Here we learned about the nine marine phylum. These being Porifera, Cnideria, Platyhelminthes, Annelida, Molluska, Nematoda, Arthropoda, Echinodermata, and Chordata. The Porifera phyla are of sponge-like creatures. In the Cnideria phyla there consists of coral, sea anemones, and jellyfish. Flatworms and tapeworms belong to the Platyhelminthes phyla and Annelida refer to earthworms and leeches. The Mollusca phylum consists of clams, oysters, snails, slugs, octopi, and squids. Nematoda are hookworms and roundworms. The Arthropoda are lobsters, crabs, and shrimp. Echinodermata is of creatures such as starfish and sea urchins, and within the phyla Chordata there are fish.

We furthered our learning even more by going into the tide pools and experimenting ourselves. The experiment we did was based off of this question: Which marine Phyla are present at the tide pools of South Maui, and which Phyla are most represented in diversity and quantity?

From this question I hypothesized that we would find more mollusks than any other phylum within the tide pools, along with finding many arthropods (crabs).

To see if my hypothesis was true, we had to first, in multiple spots, randomly spread out our transect tapes within a tide pool in south Maui. Then we had to place our first quadrat at the beginning of the transect tape and identify each of the marine phyla that were inside the quadrat. We collected our data by counting all the specimens individually inside and tallying them up. We repeated the placement of the quadrat along the transect tape till it reached the end and tallied the phyla each time.

At the tide pools, my group found mollusks, arthropods, and chordates. The abundance of the mollusks compared to the arthropods and chordata were almost overwhelming. Out of the mollusks we found 216 of the nerite snails. Of the arthropoda we found one hermit crab, five regular crabs, and two amphipods. Out of the chordata phyla we only found one fish.

From this experiment, I found my hypothesis to be correct. We did find a lot more molluska than anything else. Another phylum I found was arthropoda (crabs) and chordata. The possible sources of error that we could have or may have come across were collecting the wrong data, not placing the quadrat in multiple random places, miscounting the mollusks and other phylum we found, making the wrong calculations with distance, and just not focusing on the main goal to get everything accurate.  

These are the pictures we took during our marine phyla count:

I really enjoyed this lab. Being able to experiment with the creatures in the tide pools as a way to learn about them is very fun and helps me get a better understanding about the content when I get to witness it myself. My favorite part was not being able to be outside though, it was the contact we got to have with each of the specimens that we found. Picking them up or just studying their natural state in the tide pools was very interesting and exciting. Being able to see and feel the species also made me care about learning all about them even more. I realize that this experience has taught me some new skills in science like learning how to correctly and accurately count things within a big (or small) area and get the results I needed as well as brushing up on my lab write-up skills. I hope I get to experience more of this outdoor learning and studying in future science classes! 

* G E O C A C H I N G *

     A new unit and study is the wonderful world of geocaching! Lets just say that before I learned about this, I did not even know that it had existed in the first place...its actually pretty interesting. To lead up to learning about geocaching, we first had to understand a lot about the GPS unit. How it worked, why you used it, and why it is important. It was good information and I now understand a bunch about GPS systems. I will admit though that I do need to brush up on my ability to enter coordinates into the GPS, but I will practice.

    Geocaching is an outdoor activity in which participants from all around the world use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers called "geocaches" or "caches"that are hidden everywhere in the world. Our class decided to test this out so we became participants in the hunt. To do so, we went to the official geocaching adventure site, which was...http://www.geocaching.com. Here we set up an account, punched in our zip code and found hidden geocaches near us. 

     Some caches were harder to find than others and sometimes we did not even find the one we were searching for. Even though it was disappointing, we found it to be more successful for us to forget about it and keep searching for other ones. The first time we went out in our geocache hunt, we did not find anything! It was tiring and bumming. The second time however, my group found one. I was proud of us. No offense to whoever invented this cache but it was a boring one, there was an eraser and pencil grip. At least we found it though. We kept trying to search for others after, hoping to find more, but we were unlucky.

This is a picture of the geocache we found!

     During this unit I learned a ton about the GPS and its significance to many different things. I learned when and where they can come in handy as well as all the things it is composed of. I studied how to work it and also how to properly calculate different waypoints with it. It is simpler than I thought. I still need to refresh my memory on some things about it though. 

All About Termites...

    Termites are so common that if you blurt out the word "termite!" the image of many tiny, pale bodies eating away at a house pops right into anyones mind. What most people seem to lack the knowledge of is actually how their bodies and minds work along with how to effectively keep them away from your home. In my science class we learned all about termites. Not only did we study the basic termite facts but we went into depth and also got the opportunity to observe them in small, clear jars.

    To start off, we set up a clear plastic jar on August 18th 2010. Laying in a thick layer at the bottom of the jar was silica sand mixed with nineteen milliliters of water and a small block of douglas fur wood. Once we placed the termites inside we put the lid on the jar. We did not seal the jar shut all the way because we needed to let the air pass in and out of the jar so that the termites could live. In order to keep a good eye on the termites we kept an observation log and wrote down everything we saw that either changed or stayed the same with them in their new habitat. We did this once a week for a few weeks.

My predictions were this: 
     "I predict that the sand will be everywhere, meaning it will have holes dug in it and mixed up all over the place. All the moisture will be low and the wood will look like it has tiny chunks out of it acting as clear evidence that the termites were feating on it. Their will be more termites roaming around and maybe some dead termites as well."

My observations:
    August 23, 2010
        "I observed that the termites have made a maze like trail in the damp sand. None of the wood seems to be eaten or different in any way. The termites are actively moving from the bottom of the jar/sand to above the sand. Also there seems to be some dead termites and some new ones."

    August 30, 2010
        "There seems to be less termites in the jar than last time. They seemed to have created a more defined trail or pathway at the bottom of the jar/sand, and some of the wood has been eaten. The sand still looks damp and their is a hole through the sand coming out at the top."

    September 8, 2010
        "I can see a little amount of termites, not many though. They look pretty big compared to the last observation. The sand looks damp and there are light brown spots in the sand. It also looks like someone messed or shook the jar up."

    October 13, 2010
(The time from the last observation and this one is a while because of the fall break)
        "All the substrate (sand) is messed up and all over the place. It is in crumbles and looking very damp. The dampness could just be darker in color though. The wood looks like it has been eaten on the edges and also looks very dark or damp. All of the termites in the jar look dead but way bigger now than they were before. Now you can see the detail in their bodies and heads."

This unit was an interesting one to go through. At first I thought it was going to be really boring and easy but once we got into it I realized how detailed it really is. There is more to it than just insects who find houses a fun thing to snack on and to get rid of them just spray your house. At the end of this unit, even though it was a long one, I found it really interesting and important to learn about. My least favorite part about it was probably just how long it took to complete everything for this unit. My favorite part would probably have to be when we studied the termites guts under the microscope. I did not like everything that led up to the watching of the protozoa partly because my group did not succeed, but it was so awesome to look at the protozoa squirming inside the termite gut. It was really memorable and fun to see!

Protozoa Lab!

     Termites and protozoa? YES! They have what is called a symbiotic relationship. A symbiotic relationship is the association of two dissimilar organisms in a beneficial relationship. So by the protozoa living inside the gut of the termite, they both benefit off of each other. Heres how: The protozoa, by living inside the termites gut, is given a home and cellulose (food) by the wood the termite eats. The cellulose is digested and acetate, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and methane are produced, then released. Acetate is produced by the protozoa and the termites use the acetate as their energy source to carry out daily bodily functions. 

     In this lab we wanted to see if we could identify the different types of protozoa inside the termites gut. The materials we used were: 

• Formosan Subterranian Termites (workers)
• 2 Forceps
• 1 Light Microscope
• 1 Cover Slip
• 1 Microscope Slide
• 2 Drops of Saline Solution
• 1 Disposable Pipette
• Kimwipes

 Our procedure was this...

1. Place a drop of saline solution on a microscope slide.
2. With your two forceps, gently and carefully grab the termites head and thorax. 
3. Locate the tip of the abdomen and the end of the termites gut. Once spotted, take the forcep at the thorax end of the termite, grab and pull out the termites gut. 
4. Place the gut in the saline solution on the microscope slide.
5. Slowly place your cover slip over the saline solution and termite gut. Do this starting at one end and then the other to not get any bubbles. Gently press down, without crushing the gut. Use the kimwipes to wipe anything up that is unnecessary to this procedure. 
6. Place the slide under the microscope and adjust the magnification to when you can clearly observe the different types of protozoa. 
7. Record your data and make illustrations of the three different types of protozoa you can identify, then label your illustrations. See if you can find the wood/food/cellulose inside the protozoa body, the cytoplasm, the cilia and anything else. 

Below are some pictures of the experiment

Removing the Termites guts

Katie Schweiner identifying the Protozoa

The Protozoa Swarming Around in the Microscope Slide

Credit for photos: Tenajah, Domingo and Katie Schweiner

     When I saw the protozoa squirming around the slide under the microscope I was amazed at the activity that was taking place. The protozoa were all different sizes and varied in shapes. I could see their cytoplasm and in some, I could see the wood particles engulfed by the organism. The cilia around and on the protozoa were very interesting and amazing to observe as well. Although I never get to see them at their work besides under a microscope, they were so alive just like other human beings and I. It was very fun to watch them. After that lab, I now have more knowledge on the topic of termites and protozoa, also  have a better understanding of what symbiosis means and a symbiotic relationship.