Sunday, February 24, 2013

Core Sampling

It was another beautiful windy day at the Paepae O Heʻeia. Today's ʻole moon's turbulant winds and currents pushed an unpleasant surprise into the break wall. A honu that uncle said looks like got hit by a motor boat. Good thing Judy knew the proper protocol and notified NOAA at once. RIP Honu.

 Back Tuesday's adventure. Daniel started our day with her chipper mood about core sampling and using a refractor meter to measure salinity. It's been rainy for the last couple days which means Daniel is extra stoked because it made way for awesome core sampling.
 Kinaʻu and I had the dandy job of trekking all around in the pond. Thankfully today's shallow tides allowed us to go into the middle of the pond with out the water coming above our knees.
 It took a couple tries but Kinaʻu pulled out a fine core sample. 
 Before we even started our trek back to the kuapā the sample settled distinguishing the layers of our core sample.
 Our first task with our core sample was to make scientific observations that makes jordan smile bright:] We use mm not inches when measuring. We took note of the granual size change and color changes. We also discovered Tiffs artistic talents as she drew beautiful replicas of the samples in her notebook.
 Kinaʻu's sampel from the middle of the pond was full of life with 6+ opae and a brittle star. Our LAIP group was split into three groups to obtain samples from three different sites around and inside the pond. 1) At the end of the restored Kuapā 2)outside in Kāneohe Bay 3)in the middle of the pond.
 After our observations were complete we emptied our samples into colanders 
 After the colander was fully cleaned using distilled water we collected the remnants into test tubes to be looked at closer in the lab.
 Every last bit of the core sample was bottled into containers to be taken for further observations in the lab.
And so concluded another sciencey day at Paepae o Heʻeia. Mahalo. 

Sunday, February 10, 2013

First Day in the Lab


Today we joined Danielle in her lab at UH-Mānoa. She gave a excellent presentation on our tasks for today and on photosynthesis. 


Killed some trees for science.
 Danielle taught us about photosynthesis as primary production in detail along with how the tides effect the ocean. She also went over how to piepette and lab safety rules.



Finally got to the lab to test our piepetting skills and familiarize ourselves with correct technique. For me it was a new experience never having the chance to piepette before.

Perfect piepetting technique.
Kina'u testing her skills.



 Jacob and Jordan's faces of focus in piepetting out 25 mL of different amounts of concentration of Phosphorus to NaCl. The size of the piepets ranges from 1000 micro-liters to 10 mL.








teamwork! I noticed we are all beginning to know each other better and are not afraid to ask each other for questions and help when we need it.


Chris showing off his superb piepetting form filling his tray with his concentrated solutions.

Today was an overall very informative and learned many things. We added some lab experience and piepetting skills to our resumes. 




Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Let There Be Fish!

       This Tuesday our research took a back seat and we were able to enjoy a day learning from Hi'ilei. As the Executive Director of Paepae o He'eia she manages and overviews the pond. She began the day educating us on fishing practices and then gave us a lesson on fishing knots and a basic way of fishing.
     Our first lesson was practicing two knots that we would use to tie the hook and line to a bamboo pole.
We mastered tying our knots on the yellow rope before moving onto the fishing line.
 Our fishing set up consisted of a pole, fishing line, a small hook, and a small weight placed a couple inches above the hook.
For bait, we collected opae and small fish with small hand nets.

    Looking For Opae




 On our way to the ocean break, we spotted a friendly Ray.








And we Fish!

Hi'ilei with a Pakiki

A Kupipi


All and all it was a very fun day and we were able to take a look at some of the fish that make the fishpond their home. 

The fish we saw were
-kupipi
-toau
-stripped fish
-aholehole
-lion fish
-pakiki
-upapalu
-mamo