Friday, July 4, 2008

Second post today!

Ahoy again! In the interest of getting all of you at home caught up with us in real time, here's another post, brought to you by Norah, describing our day yesterday. Here ya go:

"Yesterday, we sailed from Horn Point to St. Michael's. On the boat, we split up into our two watches and we switched between learning with James and being on watch. When we were learning we learned about plankton and how it affects the food chain. We caught some plankton using a special net and looked at it under the microscope. It was cool! We caught mostly copepods.After talking about the very limited features of the many types of plankton, we got to design our own and make it out of play-doh. After that the watches switched roles. On watch we did bow watch, navigatino, boat check, and steering helm.

Once we arrived at St. Michael's, we went to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, where we completed a scavenger hunt while looking for information on our final project, skits on oystering in the 19th, 20th, and present centuries (editor's note: these are the right centuries, we accidentally included 18th on the last post). It had history all the way back to the Native Americans. We had many adventuresincluding one group losing all their water bottles and finding them!

When we got to the campsite, which was on the museum grounds, we set up tents and played a few games. For dinner we had spaghetti. After dinner, we went on a walk for a surprise. It was ice cream! It finished up a great day for CTY and we were ready to go to sleep."

- Norah

All right! Thanks Norah. Consider yourselves updated. Enjoy the fireworks and we'll be back tomorrow!

-Jordan

2 comments:

Alex's Dad said...

Hello Sigsbee,

We are really enjoying reading about your adventure on the high seas.

Have you heard about the Asian Oysters in your travels? A few years ago some scientists (in Virginia) began studying whether they should be brought to the Chesapeake as a way to help the oyster populations in the Bay. They resist most diseases and grow faster and bigger that the native oysters. The problem is that they may take over the habitat and displace all the native oysters. That's what the study was about.

It's a very interesting dilemma. Providing lots of oysters for food and to filter the Bay waters is on one side of the equation. On the other side is keeping the bay in its natural state with only the native populations allowed to continue, even if their numbers are low.

Please tell Alex to check his voicemail when he has a chance.

Enjoy the rest of your sail. Watch out for Chessie!

Cress said...

Say Mark here is some oyster info you can share.

The common name oyster is used for a number of different groups of bivalve mollusks, most of which live in marine habitats or brackish water.

The shell consists of two usually highly calcified valves which surround a soft body. Gills filter plankton from the water, and strong adductor muscles are used to hold the shell closed.

Some types of oysters are highly prized as food, both raw and cooked. Other types, such as pearl oysters, are not widely eaten.

True (edible) oysters are incapable of making gem-quality pearls, although the opposite idea is a commonly-encountered misapprehension, often seen in illustrations or photographs where an edible oyster shell is mistakenly paired with a gem-quality pearl.

The oyster is used as a metaphor in an idiomatic saying, "The world is your oyster", which means that the whole world is laid out before you like a wonderful living buffet!

So to all of you kids!

The world is your oyster!

Love Mom