Teens4oceans Blog

T4O at Aquarius

teens4oceans — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 23:51:09 +0000

Teens4Oceans brought down a group of students to Key Largo, Florida in June 2011 to complete the second part of the Aquarius Install Project. In addition to focusing on the deployment of our two high-def cameras on the Aquarius Reef Base, Teens4Oceans was busy getting more of their students PADI certified. Ocean First Divers successfully helped Teens4Oceans get 8 students their PADI Advanced Open Water Certification, as well as 2 students their PADI Open Water Certification. Teens4Oceans was ecstatic to be joined by two students and their teacher from the New York Harbor School. The relationship between Teens4Oceans and the New York Harbor School started in Washington, D.C. during the Blue Vision Summit. Cesar, Jericsson, and their instructor Joe were extremely helpful and a great addition to the Teens4Oceans crew. Prior to the install, we were fortunate enough to visit the onshore Aquarius Control Station, and get a briefing for our dives on the Aquarius site. The diving on the trip was exceptional, including dives on the Aquarius Reef Base, a shipwreck called the Spiegal, and numerous reefs surrounding the Key Largo area. For most of the students, the dive on Spiegal got them to their deepest depth in their scuba diving career, some students getting to depths around 100 ft. After all the diving was complete and the two cameras were deployed, the group ventured south to Bahia Honda, Florida. A transect survey of the reef there was conducted as well as a maintenance check to the Teens4Oceans camera located there. The trip was extremely successful on many fronts and we are excited to use the cameras to produce education content in the near future. In addition, Teens4Oceans looks forward to continuing to build its relationship with the New York Harbor School.

T4O is going to Washington DC!

teens4oceans — Sat, 14 May 2011 12:45:45 +0000

Six T4O students will travel with their education and outreach coordinator, and two T4O board members to Washington DC to attend the Blue Vision Summit. Look for lots of information on our blog and website next weekend.

From the Bluefront.org website:

TODAY THERE IS DESPERATE NEED to develop and expand not only our biological knowledge of the seas, but also an active and educated political constituency to protect the oceans’ living resources.

There are two major new reports on the state of America’s seas, the first of their kind in over thirty years. They are from the independent Pew Oceans Commission and the federal US Commission on Ocean Policy. Both recognize that or marine ecosystems are in crisis. “A 9/11 in the ocean is sitting there waiting to happen if we let it,” warns Admiral James Watkins, head of the federal commission.

Among their recommendations is passage of an American Oceans Act. Like the Clean Air and Clean Water acts of the 20 th century, this would help assure the continued life, health and use of a vital public resource. There’s also a call for an independent ocean agency, a kind of EPA for the seas, and a doubling of ocean science support (today’s funding for ocean exploration is roughly one one-thousandth of NASA’s space budget). Still, government action is unlikely without an upsurge of citizen action to demand change.

The Blue Frontier Campaign is working to link seaweed activists and concerned citizens who, getting so much from the sea in terms of recreation, transportation, food, security, livelihood and spiritual renewal, are now ready to give something back.

The Blue Frontier Campaign has produced dozens of print, radio and television reports on America’s last great wilderness range: Its imperiled living seas. Along with addressing the latest controversies surrounding beach closures, collapsing fish stocks, killer algae, hurricanes and oil spills, the campaign seeks solutions, It does this by educating the public about a “seaweed rebellion” of coastal citizen-activists, local governments, and waterfront communities who are working to protect and restore the sea’s health and our own.

The Campaign also provides public speakers to the nations leading aquariums, to journalism and science conferences, on college campuses and to maritime and ocean activist organizations.

If you’d like to have a speaker address your group you can arrange it through the Blue Frontier Campaign, (202) 387-8030 or Helvarg@bluefront.org

Akumal: April 1

teens4oceans — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 00:01:29 +0000

This morning we awoke to find that we could finally complete our open water dives in the ocean, and not have to go impromptu to another cenote. We decided to go in two groups to finish our certifications. One was in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Our excitement mounted as we gathered our gear, checked our tanks, regulators and BCD’s, and loaded everything onto the boats. The first group went out to the dive site, a little past the reef offshore, where we descended down the rope about 50 feet to the sandy bottom. We started our skills course, manually inflating our BCD’s and clearing our masks of water. We then took a tour around the backside of the reef, which is an extension of the larger Yucatan Fringe Reef. We saw a variety of sea life, including indigenous fish, coral species, and a stingray. We finished the first dive with our CESA (Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent), and went up to the boat. After switching our air tanks onshore, we went right into our second dive. The final dive of the morning was shorter, and we practiced navigating by compass, remaining neutrally buoyant and removing our masks. Ben also saw a sea turtle. We returned to the surface, and the instructors congratulated us on becoming Open Water Divers.

In the afternoon, the second group did the same two dives as the first. We saw several beautiful but invasive lionfish, a couple of large sea turtles, and some Caribbean reef squid. We completed the same skills as the first group in order to finish our certification process. Despite our seasickness on the boat rides, we matured as open water divers and had an incredible experience exploring the deep blue.

Akumal: March 31

teens4oceans — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 23:55:46 +0000

8:15am:

Sacha and Mr. M talked with the dive operator this morning and it was still too rough and windy to dive off the back of the reef slope. The weather tomorrow hopefully will get better or we will finish our certification in Cenoto Ponderosa!. Today we will go the lagoon that lies inside the fringe reef, right off the beach at Caribe. The plan for today is for each of us to design a field experiment, collect data, and then share our findings with each other. We will start with a seagrass survey that involves running transect lines through a seagrass bed and collecting sediment samples from the sea floor along the lines. To perform this test, we will lay transect lines using dive weights and rope and use the pythagorean to ensure that the two lines are perpendicular to each other. Students will then measure increments of a meter and a half along the transect lines and collect samples (The area is about 30 meters by 40 meters). We will be testing the hypothesis that seagrass beds stabilize sediments and we predict that we will find finer sediments in the patch of grass. We will then use two ingenious PVC pipe sampling tools (designed by Mr. Mendelow) to collect sediment.

Later:

We learned that seagrass beds are important refuges for many larval stages of fish, benthic organisms, and other invertebrates. They also allow organisms to settle from the zooplankton. We saw two species of seagrass in the lagoon, and it seems that the green turtles have heavily grazed the wider bladed Thalassia. When we finish collecting data we will post the results to the blog. Currently, we are sifting the sediments that we collected and are analyzing our data.

Even later:

Crunching data…

7:20pm:

Akumal: March 30, 2011

teens4oceans — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 16:02:37 +0000

Woke up to windy weather again today. We had breakfast, and sat down with the dive operators and instructors to run through our first open water dive, and packed the vans for Casa Cenote! The crew had to split into two groups, one doing their first two OW dives, while the other snorkeled and enjoyed the incredible mangroves and adjacent beach. A cenote is a sinkhole formed by underground water eroding away limestone. The ceiling collapses, allowing access to the water below. Cenotes were the primary source of water in the Yucatan peninsula.

The first dive was a tour of the cenote, where we all became comfortable in the open water. On the way to the dive we met two great people, whose kids will hopefully work with us in the future. They were excited about T4O. The organisms were so different from those on the reef and in the seagrass beds that we have snorkeled in. There were strange algal and bacterial mats, and VERY cool blue crabs. Mr. M will ID them later. We took cool images and shot a lot of video that will be awesome for our movie we will make when we get home. The dive instrcuctors took us through some overhangs and caves, which was challenging, but very memorable. We set up our buddy teams and took care of each other. We need to work on our buddy skills for our next dive. Cole and Parker joined us for the day (friends that are staying with their family near by).

We got home exhausted and went over to the home of Cole and Parker. Their parents were SO hospitable and nice. We ate great food and then walked home on the beach as a big group. On the way home we found bioluminescent microorganisms that were amazing. They produce lights enzymatically and we talked for a while about it.

We bought some supplies for the next day and went to bed. Hope the wind lays down tomorrow.

Akumal: March 29, 2011

teens4oceans — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 01:09:26 +0000

Internet is spotty in our bungalows. We have not had any luck pushing images to our blog site, but Jeremey is working on it!

The crew woke up early today for the first of four dives to complete PADI certification. Unfortunately, heavy winds forced us to put off plans for Scuba diving. Tomorrow, we’ll start the process by diving in a nearby cenote. We spent the morning being overcharged for the water at breakfast, and snorkeled the reef offshore, where we saw several squid, barracuda, lots of tang, three species of urchin, pretty coral (despite it being only about 5% coverage), and found an awesome spot for a seagrass survey. We planned a study of sea grass beds for later this week. This afternoon, we snorkeled in a lagoon, and learned about brackish water ecosystems. The onshore winds kicked up sediment and the visibility was not great, but we had a great time. Tonight, we’ll eat at a local Cantina restaurant close to the hotel.

Monday, March 28, 2011

teens4oceans — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 01:00:32 +0000

Today we arrived at Akumal after two long flights and a grueling 9 hour layover in Houston. Upon arrival in Cozumel, we took a ferry to Playa del Carmen and then took a taxi to Akumal. We’re staying at Hotel Akumal Caribe, where we spent the afternoon snorkeling, playing football on the beach, and eating at the hotel restaurant (Lol Ha). Afternoon snorkeling included sightings of green turtle (Chelonia sp.) eating seagrass (Thalassia sp.), and a four foot barracuda (Sphyraena sp.). We’re all pretty tired, but are looking forward to a great trip!

Student Information Day at Kent Denver

teens4oceans — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:01:35 +0000

The Kent Denver Teens4Oceans Club hosted an information session today at their school in Colorado. Representatives from Wild Goose Engineering, Ocean First Divers, and Ocean Classrooms (a T4O education affiliate) attended the event giving demonstrations and watching student presentations on the various aspects of the organization. Several students presented on last year’s Marine BioBlitz at Biscayne Bay, as well as the upcoming DEMA trip. Other demonstrations included coral taxonomy, estuary health, fish taxonomy, and camera mantinence and construction.

We had a lot of fun!
Thanks, Allison

Teens4Oceans goes to DEMA

teens4oceans — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 07:55:28 +0000

On November 18th, several T4O instructors and students will be going to Las Vegas to participate in the DEMA exposition. We will be using iPads to show off our cameras, ad several other technologies in our possession to promote Teens4Oceans. We were invited to the event by Ocean Classrooms and Ocean First Divers. At DEMA, we hope to gain followers and promote our organization among our peers in Marine Biology research. We’ll be updating some of the more substantial elements of our website in the weeks leading up to the DEMA show.

The Virgin Islands cam, eternally harried by foul weather and technical difficulties, is down again. We’re working on it!

We’re also ordering some new merchandise for the website… What kind of products would YOU be interested in?

View This Poll

Fundraising at Kent Denver!

teens4oceans — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 02:09:48 +0000

Hi all!

This week at Kent Denver is Teens4Oceans week! We’ll be fund raising Monday the 18th until Friday the 22nd. We’re also hosting a challenge in which students attempt to ride a crazy backwards steering bike 100 feet– if they’re able to ride that far, they win $100.

Check out the bike, built by director Trevor Mendelow!