Saturday April 11th was Marine Science Day at Hatfield. Selene and I headed to Newport to help host the PMEL Acoustics information table, but I also had a chance to explore the event and see what other labs had on display.

In the Marine Mammal Institute room, I visited fellow Fisheries and Wildlife graduate students. Below, Amanda, Erin, and Florence explain their research projects and share audio, video, and photographs from the field.

Across the hall, I learned about sea star wasting syndrome and practiced my identification skills.

In the genetics lab, I extracted DNA from a strawberry! In this photo, I am adding ethanol to separate the DNA material from the water in the vial.

In the Oregon Department of Fisheries and Wildlife outside tent I learned about shellfishing regulations. Sustaining the Dungeness crab fishery requires that recreational fisherman only take males crabs that are larger than 5 3/4″ across. The second photo shows an example of two crabs – can you tell which one is legal and which is not?

Inside the library, Marine Resource Management students Sara and Sandra showed me their “Ocean Management Game”. I had pretty bad luck and sadly had remove a lot of fish and sea stars from the ocean.

Finally, at the PMEL Acoustics table, Joe, Selene, and I showed an example of our hydrophones and explained how we use a 3D printer to create custom assembly components. We also had a microphone set-up with a real-time Ismael display. When visitors spoke, whistled, or sang into the microphone they were able to “see” their voices in the spectogram.