"Straddie"

Last weekend I went on a field trip with my Marine Science class to Moreton Bay. University of Queensland has a research station on Stradbroke Island, which is one of the many beautiful islands on Moreton Bay, about 2 hours from Brisbane. The commute consisted of an hour bus ride and then an hour ferry ride on Friday morning, and we returned back home Sunday night. The weekend was very fun, especially for a field trip. We were able to spend time on the beach during the day, looking for cool marine animals in the water and also just laying in the sand. We were split into 10 groups of 5 and throughout the weekend we worked on our own research project with our groups and presented our findings at the end of the weekend. This was probably the most fun I have ever had doing any type of schoolwork, we had a lot of freedom and it was actually very fun learning about everything. My group did our research on Pygmy Squids, which are very small squids (less than 20mm) that change color from clear to brownish-green. We tested whether they changed color based on the color of their habitat or not. We did this by going out to the water early in the morning so that it was low tide and we were able to walk pretty far out and sift through the sea grass with nets to try and find these tiny squids. They were really hard to find (we found about 18 in an hour and a half, and I only found 2 the whole time) but it was still fun and I felt like a real scientist. We took our 18 little squids back to the lab at the research station and conducted our experiment. We filled Petri dishes with sea grass, brown algae, and sand, and also put empty Petri dishes on top of a black surface and a white surface. This allowed us to see weather the squids would change color to match their environment. It took us a pretty long time to complete the experiment, but it was really cool being able have a hands on learning experience and working with a new group of people. In the end, our hypothesis that the squids would change to a darker color in a darker environment and a clear color in a lighter environment was pretty much correct, though not completely true all of the time. It was basically just fun to stare at them and see them change color right before our eyes. After presenting our project and watching the other groups present the next day, I really learned a lot about the marine environment in the area and about how research projects work.

On the last day of the trip we left the research station and went to the other side of the island where we took a walk on some cliffs and saw some beautiful views of the ocean. Then they gave us a few hours to relax on the beach before we had to head back to Brisbane. It was a great weekend, I met a lot of new people and learned a lot of new things. Who knew a field trip could be so fun! Well, in 2 days I will be off to Cairns where will finally get to dive in the Great Barrier Reef and take a real rainforest tour. I can’t wait!