University of West Florida

This week the two cohorts were all at the University of West Florida in Pensacola.  It is so beautiful up here.  I really enjoy the scenery and location of the school.  It is hard to believe that we were still in the state of Florida. The week had a very full schedule each day.

 Sunday night we started with an orientation, this gave us the opportunity to meet the members of the other cohort before the weeks activities actually started bright and early Monday morning.  On Monday my cohort started with a Snorkel test in the indoor pool on campus.  For just snorkeling in the upcoming weeks, the exam was a little over board. It was good learning experience  for the people who  have never snorkeled before.  The rest of the day was spent out in the field visiting different locations on and near campus looking at the different types of streams, the diversity of the streams, and water quality data was taken.  We then met back up with the other cohort and went to the Perdido River which is the boarder for Florida and Alabama.   

A place on campus that was flooded and the road was destroyed. 

Hello from the Alabama/ Florida line. 

On Tuesday we spent the whole day in our individual cohorts doing different types of field work.  We did seagrass surveys and sein netting at Big Lagoon.  We then went on pontoon boats down the Perdido River and took multiple types of water quality samples from different location on the river.  It was interesting to see how the data changed within the different locations on the river.  For dinner we met back up with the other cohort and had a shrimp boil.  Wednesday was a very long day.  We started at Pensacola Beach and learned about the environment on the beach and we pulled more sein nets, along  with doing water quality data.  It was very interesting to learn that the white sand is made from quarts that comes down from the Appalachian Mountains. We then went to the other side of the road and talked more about the dune systems.  We then took water quality and pulled sein nets in the Salt Marsh.  There was a storm that started coming right for us so we then moved to Santa Rosa Sound.  While here, we again took water quality data and pulled 5 sein nets.  After dinner was delivered to us, we went into the State Park and learned about the Turtle T.H.I.S. project.  This project is looking at the effects of artificial light on nesting turtles and the turtle hatchlings.  As the sun was going down, we traveled to a nest laid the night before by a Leatherback sea turtle to survey it.  It was very special to visit a nest that was laid the night before by such a large animal. Thursday was a day dedicated to the work up of the data that was collected earlier in the week and an opportunity to start on the group presentation that was presented on Friday.

Helping with collections on the boat. 

Overall I had a great week at the University of West Florida.  It was a place I had never been before so I enjoyed learning about the habitats and ecosystems that are up here.  I look forward to next week in Jacksonville.

Cohort A