RWU Science - Student's-Eye View

This past semester, Dr. Scott Rutherford, one of RWU's Environmental Science faculty (and resident climate change expert), had a great idea to have our science students carry their camera with them for a couple of weeks and document "Science at Roger Williams University". He ended up receiving over a 100 photos that showcase RWU science as seen through the students' eyes. Quite frankly, I think these pictures do a better job of showing what it's like to be a science major at RWU than any perfectly-lit-but-choreographed University PR photo shoot. I think we should make this an annual event.

Student's-Eye View full gallery

Christopher Hitchens at RWU

This evening, Christopher Hitchens, one of "The Four Horsemen", will be giving a lecture here on campus. The lecture is free and open to the public as part of our "Civil Discourse" series and as the opening to the 2009 Roger Williams University Conference on Religion and the State. The theme of this year's conference is "Islam and the West". I'm not sure how much of the conference I will attend to, but I'm headed to the Hitchens talk in an hour or so. I'm willing to bet it will be good, likely to be controversial, and probably anything but "civil". Should be fun. :)

Vibrating building

The university is currently in the process of adding a new addition to the Marine & Natural Science Building in which my office resides. This is a great thing as the new addition will be used to expand our shellfish hatchery program and open up space in the wet lab for the the rest of the marine science program. The problem, however, is that one of the walls in my office is an outside wall to which the addition is being attached. The end result is that everyday brings new and jarring construction activiies, sometimes to the point that you can't hold a conversation in the room. The crew even accidentally cut 6-inch-long slits through the base of the wall - wide enough that I could see daylight (seriously - I (and they) were lucky they didn't cut into a computer or wiring or somebody's foot). The other day was the absolute worse though. I have no idea what they were doing, but the entire room was vibrating - things were actually moving on the desk and shelves.

All I could think about was this:

what happened to critical thinking? (or proofreading?)

The title of this post suggests something more grandiose than I intend to present. But it is a key question. This is just a rant of sorts that I need to get off my chest. Perhaps I shouldn't, but I need to.

A recent quiz question for my Introductory Biology class:
"What is the relationship between the number of species or groups under cladistic analysis and the number of possible cladograms?"

Student answer:

The number of species or groups under cladisitc analysis is irrelevant to the number of possible cladograms. However, as the number of species increases the number of possible cladograms increases.

I'd like to say that the student is just hedging, but I truly believe the student thinks this answer makes sense.

RWU: the magazine

I'm very excited to announce the inaugural issue of Roger Williams University's new magazine - RWU. The old magazine, The Bridge, had stagnated and the Office of University Communications saw need to revamp and start fresh. For the first time, the University utilized a Board of Editors to help with the story and design elements of the magazine. I was asked to sit on the Board to represent the Division of Math & Science and am happy to say that the magazine came out fantastic - it's fresh, current, well-designed, and does a great job of depicting the great things associated with RWU.

By far, the majority of the credit goes to our chief editor, Brian Clark, and his staff, but, if I may toot my own horn, I enjoyed playing a role in the final product. The cover story on eating locally was my idea (as well as independently by a couple of others on the Board) and I am one of the "focus localvores" in the piece (though I am misquoted once or twice!). I was also the author of the "On the Waterfront" piece about our partnership with the New England Aquarium on page 6. All in all it has been a great experience being part of this transformation.

The magazine has been mailed out to the RWU community (Rick - did you get your copy yet?). For the rest of you, the magazine is available in pdf form from the University website. If you have a few minutes, please take a look and let me know what you think - we're starting the process already for issue #2 and would love your feedback.

Planet Forward

Planet Forward is a PBS project being run by Frank Sesno. The topic is sustainability and energy. On this site, you will find a variety of arguments for and against our dependency on fossil fuels. As a founding partner in this project, RWU recruited nine very talented students to produce many of the videos and to contribute other content to the site.

This is a pretty cool idea and a great way to tap the power of the internet to help spread information and start dialogues on an important subject. I'm not involved with this at any level, other than the fact that RWU is one of the major players. I'm happy to to see the University involved in a project like this - it's forward-thinking and proactive - and the fact that our undergraduates played a central role makes it all the better.

As for your part, go to the site, register and rate your favorite videos. The most popular ones will appear on a national PBS special entitled “Planet Forward,” which airs at 8 p.m. ET and PT on April 15. (All top 10 media markets including NY, Boston, LA and Chicago, will air this program.)

Climate Change Science at RWU

Although Roger Williams U is a small, liberal arts school, we have an active research program that produces some amazing science. The most recent example of this, I am proud to share, is the result of a friend of mine's work on climate change in the Antarctic. Dr. Scott Rutherford is one of the co-authors of the cover story in the Jan 22 issue of Nature (abstract here). Essentially, the work shows that "significant warming extends well beyond the Antarctic Peninsula to cover most of West Antarctica, an area of warming much larger than previously reported. West Antarctic warming exceeds 0.1 °C per decade over the past 50 years..." As could be expected, especially given the high-profile publication, this new work has made something of a splash and is already under attack by the climate change skeptic, Steve McIntyre.

So, congrats to Scott (and the other authors), even if it's bad news for the rest of us, and good luck dealing with the climate change skeptics - this has the possibility to become a remaking of the other Climate Change hullabaloo we had on campus a few semesters ago. Hopefully, the new PResident will work quickly to "restore Science to its rightful place".

Symposium on Marine Renewable Energy

Here's an interesting event taking place on campus this week (that I just found out about) - the 7th Marine Law Symposium on Thursday and Friday, Oct. 23 and 24, will focus on developing a framework for off-shore renewable energy.

This month, developing that framework will be the focal point when domestic and international scientists, business leaders and policymakers – including U.S. Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri and a host of others – converge at Roger Williams University on Oct. 23-24 to find real-world solutions for tackling the legal, economic and policy challenges of the nascent marine renewable energy industry.

At the law school’s 7th Marine Law Symposium, this cross-disciplinary gathering of experts will grapple with the “how” of developing offshore energy resources, addressing concrete ways to support the burgeoning marine renewable energy business market, while attempting to reconcile a tangle of local, state, federal and public interest needs related to the protection, conservation and management of valuable marine resources.

Although registration for the event is closed, it is going to be streamed live at mms://streamer.rwu.edu/marinelaw and apparently there is going to be some live blogging of the event.

Perhaps I'm not in the loop as much as I would like to be, but I'm amazed that I didn't hear about this event until today. In fact, the only reason I heard of it at all is because an email went out to everyone concerning the parking ban in effect for the event! In any case, this is an important topic, especially for coastal areas, so hopefully something good comes of the symposium.

It's all woo to me

I got an email today via the "All-Faculty" listserv inviting everyone to the Fall Faculty Lecture. The lecture's title is "Eggtopia". Here's the complete description that came in the email:

The transformation of energy into animate matter seems to occur generally within a container of some sort, a membrane, a pouch, a seed, or a shell. An egg is arguably the most pristine archetypal form among all receptacles within which life is engendered. Created at the inception of life, this completely sealed form vibrates with a latency manifest in its aura of impeccable silence. Even when an egg is broken and deserted by the life it once hosted, its inner depths seem to continue to ring with the memory of the transformative miracle, which took place within.

I think I'll skip this one.

Generation K

It seems that parents who had girls born in 1990 were fascinated with the letter K. My roster for introductory biology this year includes:

Krysten
Katelyn (#1)
Katelyn (#2)
Kathryn (#1)
Kathryn (#2)
Kelsey
Kelilah
Kellie
Kasey

That's over 50% of the women in the class. 'K' isn't supposed to be a popular letter. In fact, it's the 21st most frequent letter in the English language (only ahead of 'J', 'X', 'Q', and 'Z'). It's worth 5 points in Scrabble! How am I supposed to learn who's who?

Marine bio Camp - day 6 recap

Well, this year's Marine Biology Camp came to a close with a whale watching excursion with Capt. John Boats out of Plymouth, MA. Although our chances of seeing anything seemed slim with the heavy fog rolling in, our luck was good once we hit Stellwagen Bank and the fog cleared. Highlights from the the trip:

• Saw five humpbacks up close, including two cow-calf pairs, as well as a couple of minke whales and a fin whale off in the distance


• One of the humpback whales we saw was Salt, the first humpback to be given a name some 30+ years ago, and her new calf, Sanchal
.

• Great bubble net feeding beahvior


• Best of all, Sanchal gave us a show with a "spinning head breach" right in front of the bow of the boat. This was the first time I had ever seen a breach and was as amazing as I thought it would be!

Upon our return to campus, we gave the Marine Bio students their final exam. We'd been hyping it up all week long, scaring them into paying attention and taking notes, even offering bonus points for various things throughout the week. In the end though, the "final" was a fun scavenger hunt across campus, complete with a bucket for bringing back samples (e.g. an herbivorous marine gastropod, a piece of flotsam, a member of the phylum Arthropoda). No grades are assigned - everyone had fun, learned some stuff, did some things they never did before, and got a cool RWU Marine Biology t-shirt. A success by all accounts (excepting the one kid that left mid-week).

It was an intense week - I feel like we did an entire semester of a Marine Bio lab/field course in one week. I think I'll go to bed now and sleep for about three days!

Marine bio Camp - day 5 recap

Today's Itinerary:
Morning Session
Trawling on the 54' fishing vessel, the Captain Bert - students got to see the deployment of a smallish otter trawl and learn some fish biology while examining the haul;
Our catch included fluke, flounder, lobstahs, sea robins, scup/porgies, and squid;
Observe fluke dissection - examine internal anatomy and stomach contents (two recently eaten scup);

Afternoon Session
Winkler titrations of light/dark bottles from yesterday;
determine and graph primary productivity (gross and net) and respiration rates for surface and deep water;

Evening Lecture
Marine Mammals, given by yours truly (why me? cause our resident marine mammologist is on sabbatical and I lost the coin flip; thank goodness for wikipedia!)

Marine bio Camp - day 4 recap

Today's Itinerary
Morning session
Take RWU boats out for plankton sampling - one boat deploys a 150μm zooplankton net, the other deploys a 20μm phytoplankton net;
Using Van Dorn bottle, collect water samples and set-up primary productivity analysis (using the light/dark bottle technique);
In lab, use microscopes to examine the plankton samples - sketch and ID five phytoplankton and five zooplankton;
use spectrophotometers to measure chlorophyll concentration in samples filtered yesterday;

Afternoon session
Head to Fogland Beach for some fish seining along the shore and salt marsh;

Evening Lecture
Fish Biology

Highlight of the Day
Catching a 20-inch striped bass in the beach seine

Lowlights of the Day
1) Lion's mane stings
2) For tomorrow's Winkler titrations I wondered if I should use glass or plastic graduated cylinders. Are the high schoolers careful enough for the glass ones? I don't know...they're pretty fragile...and tippy (the cylinders, not the kids!)...oh what the hell, let them use the good stuff. Any bets on what I did while setting up? I decided to go with plastic.

Marine bio Camp - day 3 recap

Today's Itinerary:
Morning session
take RWU's two small boats (a 19' Lema Skiff and a 29' Master Marine) out on the Bay;
on one boat - take CTD and Secchi disk readings from three different stations; collect surface, mid-column, and "deep" water samples using a Van Dorn bottle (for chlorophyll analysis back in the lab);
on 2nd boat - deploy Van Veen Grab and small otter trawl, identify and discuss critters found

Afternoon session
discuss productivity, photosynthesis, and ways of measuring both;
process water samples collected in morning - for each sample, filter 1L through 0.5μ membrane, place membrane filter in 10ml acetone to extract chlorophyll, let sit overnight (will quantify chlorophyll spectrophotometrically tomorrow);
discuss what characteristics make a good graph;
create depth profiles using CTD data from morning (salinity, temperature, and dissolved oxygen vs depth);
interpret depth profiles and relate to the geography of the Bay;

Evening Lecture
Phytoplankton, primary productivity, and marine invertebrates (characteristics of major phyla) - presented by our two senior undergraduate camp assistants

Issue of the Day
Lost a kid. OK, not really, but one kid did decide that he hated the camp so much he didn't want to stay. So, his dad came by this evening, picked him and his stuff up, and took him home. Oh well. Maybe he was expecting dolphins and sharks or something.

Marine bio Camp - day 2 recap

Itinerary:
kayak in Ninigret Pond;
explore the salt marsh, tidal flats, eel grass beds, sandy beach;
search for, find, and identify critters, discuss their ecology/natural history;
discuss sedimentation, local geology, glacial past, anaerobic decomposition, hydrogen sulfide production;
visit rocky intertidal zone at Beavertail State Park;
discuss important physical and biological factors at play here;
examine zonation;
search for, find, and identify critters;
compare and contrast with sandy beach environment;

Problems encountered:
Shuttle bus with students taking the long way around, getting stuck in morning rush-hour traffic;
kayak outfitter unable to unlock kayaks -> go out and rent bolt cutters -> cut lock;
kid from CA forgetting his parent-signed kayaking release form;
RWU shuttle failing to return to pick us up to take us to the rocky intertidal (they didn't see the second destination on the shuttle request form);
hung around kayak center parking lot for a couple of hours waiting for RWU security to "do their best to get someone out to pick us up";
had approximately 40 minutes at rocky intertidal;
one bloody shin and one smashed toe (neither mine);

At least it didn't rain on us. And I didn't lose anyone.

Kayaks, Winklers, and Otter Trawls....oh my!

Today was the start of the RWU Summer Marine Biology Camp, a one-week, intensive, hands-on marine biology experience for high school kids. And I'm running it. Or rather, I'm co-running it with Scott Rutherford, our resident geologist. Today, 15 students arrived with their parents (well, technically, 14 arrived with parents, 1 flew in solo from CA), got settled into their dorm rooms, and got oriented to the program. Our week is packed full - so much so that I think I may not see my wife and kids until Saturday. Sorry, Linda! Here's a quick run-down of some of the things happening the week:

• kayaking at Ninigret Pond - we'll explore this coastal lagoon (aka salt pond) and associated habitats (salt marsh, sand/mud flats, barrier beach, eel grass beds), keeping an eye out for as many critters as we can


• tidepooling at Beavertail State Park - a great, wave-swept, rocky intertidal area - perfect for observing zonation


• using a small, hand-deployable CTD to create water column profiles in Mt. Hope Bay (a part of Narragansett Bay)


• using Van Dorn bottles to collect water samples at various depths for chlorophyll analysis


• phyto- and zooplankton tows and then some microscope work to see what we caught


• investigation of primary productivity using light and dark bottles and Winkler titrations (if I can find the burets!)


• fish seining at a local beach - we should find plenty of silversides, mummichog, and sheepsheads, among other things


• deploying an otter trawl off the 54' fishing-cum-research vessel, the Captain Bert - I am really looking forward to this one as I have never done or seen this before - we should pull up a good variety of critters, hopefully with minimal harm/bycatch


• whale watching on Stellwagen Bank - a good way to end the week.

Just so you don't think the students are having all fun this week, there are also evening lectures after dinner that they have to endure and a final exam at the end. I'll be giving a lecture later in the week on marine mammals (!!) in prep for the whale watch (more on this later). Should be an exhausting, but fun week!

Cuttlefish babies!

In case you missed it, Kevin Z was the winner of the mystery photo contest - he correctly guessed identified those inch-long black things as cuttlefish egg cases. Congrats, Kevin! Your hard-earned loot is in the mail (or, rather, will be tomorrow).

Specifically, those were the egg cases of the common cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis, one of the organisms currently in residence here at RWU. One of our undergrads is working on more effective and efficient ways of breeding and raising them. The black color comes from ink that the female injects into each egg case.

The eggs hatched over this past weekend - 88 in total. Each hatchling is a tiny, yet fully formed cuttlefish that feeds, changes color, and inks if disturbed. They're very cute (for a mollusc).

Some pics of 2-day old cuttlefish (I'll try to get a better, close-up later when they're a little bigger). Each baby is about 1.5cm or so:




Here are some older, bigger cuttles (approx. 15-20 cm):

Can somebody explain this to me?

(no, this isn't a picture of Jack)
Remember that stack of papers I have to grade? Well, I'm still working on them. But I had to stop and vent some frustration. Tell me how I interpret this:

One, single project, with four group members, on the effect of two different diets (Artemia and copepods) on jellyfish growth and budding. Here are summaries of each student's account of their methodology:

Student 1 - project ran for 23 days, fed jellyfish 10ml of the two different diets at first, then reduced to 5ml after 10ml was deemed too much.

Student 2 - project ran for 4 weeks, fed jellyfish 1ml of both diets.

Student 3 - project ran for 6 weeks, fed jellyfish 3ml of both diets.

Student 4 - project ran for 4 weeks, fed jellyfish 1ml of one diet, 5ml of the second

It's one thing (and expected) for members of a team to differ in how well they explain their experimental procedure - some leave things out that others include, some are more concise and understandable, but no one in this group agrees on the day-to-day details of the experiment. How does that happen?

Does this mean they didn't actually do the experiment and made stuff up? Was this a complete breakdown of teamwork and each individual did their own thing? Did one student do the whole thing and then screw with the other three by telling each something different?

It's that time of year again...

By the end of the day today, I should have a stack of papers to grade. Woohoo!! My intro bio students undertook a "semester-long"^* research project and their formal write-ups are due today. What are the chances that I have them all before I leave? Yeah, that's what I think too.

The students gave group presentations of their research last week, so I have a good feel for what to expect. I've flipped through some already and have found that my oh-so wonderful suggestions I gave after their presentation have not been incorporated into their final paper. Not a good start. But at least some of the students stopped referring to earthworms as insects. So they've got that going for them.

^*Apparently, "semester-long", for some groups, means wait until the last weekend before everything is due to collect and analyze samples and then when they realize they don't have enough time to actually quantify anything, they "eye-ball" it.

Things that are not insects....