Carlita Franks and Stephanie Every, S3’s at Cedarbridge Academy, spent their annual work shadow day studying alongside some of the scientists here at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences.
The young ladies started off by helping Dr. Andrea Bodnar and Research Associate Mae Lortie in the collection of hemolymph samples from two different organisms; sea hares, known locally as “headache fish”, and purple sea urchins.
Hemolymph is the fluid that makes up the circulatory system of these creatures and it’s equivalent to our blood. As part of her research, Dr. Bodnar is investigating the differences between the two species. In the pictures above Mae is covered in purple ink and the thick, sticky mucus that the sea hares secrete to deter predators.
At the end of the extraction and preparation process, Carlita and Stephanie studied the cells they’d collected under the microscope.
If you’d like to read more Dr. Bodnar and Mae’s work, you can visit our website.
In the afternoon the young ladies were given the grand tour of our labs and learned a bit more about some of our specialist equipment, such as the flow cytometer used by Stacey Goldberg in the Plankton Ecology Lab. Next they tried their hand at coral identification and were introduced to a few of the techniques the scientists here at BIOS use to look at the plants and animals that make up Bermuda’s coral reefs. Great job, ladies!
The Ocean Academy would like to extend a special thanks to all the staff members who helped make Carlita and Stephanie scientists for the day!
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