This week at UNF was physically exhausting but completely worth the effort. We learned a lot about beach dynamics, spatial, and temporal patterns in a coastal ecosystem. I thought the 24 hour sampling was the most interesting activity for several reasons. Our class was in the news for a second time in five weeks which really made me feel like our simple work was going a long way. I was also intrigued by the education center, especially their focus on keeping trash and debris in the trash can. They had several artistic displays using trash collected from around the site to highlight just how detrimental it can be to the ecosystem. I also liked making relations between the physical aspects of the environment and faunal patterns. As an average angler, i am used to paying attention to the tides and movement in general water flow but here it is more prominent due to the weir system in place between the river and lake. At some points the tide came in so quickly we had to move equipment in order to keep it from being washed out to sea. While I was quite tired, I was able to see the water begin flowing over the dam and into the lake at about 1:30 am. This was also a great fishing time because this flowing water mixes up shrimp, crustaceans, and makes it tougher for small baitfish like silversides to escape predators like speckled trout. Another interesting aspect about this week was taking our data and making graphs. While I am not too keen with excel, I enjoyed the final product and the lessons learned. While I have made several graphs for labs and various classes, I had never taken field data and turned it into a graph. It was comparable to the presentations we put together at UWF. Our presentations at UWF were more qualitative in that we were describing general topics but here we were actually using raw data and quantitatively analyzing our findings. Overall this week really helped me create associations between the field and classroom and how the two are necessary for my future career.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/uqb3jjiwywz0zt0/rimg1518.jpg?dl=0