Juliana Brandt

DAY 7:

Today is our last service learning day and we’re all sad to see it come to an end.
I can tell how much work we’ve put into this group. Being seniors, and being a part of the
group for two years, we have learned how to work together and collect various data. Although
our scuba certifications were not in use for most of the year, we were able to find other ways to
affect and help our community.
We began the day with a discussion of the past service learning day and how we will finish

off sending our DNA coded organisms to other scientists. We started with previous extractions of
existing tubes that contained each DNA of the species we found from the last service learning day.
To continue the process of extracting the DNA, we used PCR to get the DNA to copy multiple
times. We did this by setting the temperature at almost boiling, then lowering it and raising it
multiple times. This process allows us to understand what each of the specific species and
organisms are.

After putting different substances in the tubes, we went out to collect more traps.
Unfortunately when we got to the dock we were trying to unstrap it from the pole of the doc.
Since the pole was difficult to get, we accidentally dropped it back into the water and we were
not able to take it back with us.

However, when we returned, we took new extractions of others species to start more DNA coding. When we got back to class we continued what we did last service learning day and went through each string in our bucket and the species in the water. This takes some time but it is interesting to see how many species stayed in the bucket after a month. This took some time, but we were able to get a significant part of it done. When the PCR was completed, we each took tubes and put that into the gel. This process is known as Gel Electrophoresis of the PCR product. The DNA is so small at this stage that it is able to make its way through the gel because of the positive attraction at the end of the gel. This tells us how long a strand is and works as a sort of check that we completed the other parts correctly. We will then be sending this information to the other scientists.

Overall, I think we had a very productive service learning day, and a great end to the year.

Blog 6:
Today’s service learning day was really fun and interesting. We started the day off with continuing our process of PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) in order to get the DNA sequencing to determine specifically what each species is. I have not done this before so I thought it was really interesting to learn how to get the DNA of a specific organism. 
In order to complete this, we each chose two viles containing one species each. We then extracted one organism for each new vile and photographed them to know what they looked like for when the sequencing comes back. We then put one organism of each species that we had into a new vile. After adding in half our solution, we grounded them up each with a pestil. We put two solutions into the new viles. The first was 180 microliters of buffer and the second was 20 microliters of proteinase. To continue on with the process, we put the viles in a hot water bath. This process required a lot of communication and collaboration to help one another with each step.
From there we let the viles stay in the hot water while Sierra, Ryan, Anna, and I went to collect our bucket trap from the Newport dock. Getting the bucket went smoothly but it was hard to make sure we didn’t let the water slip out of the holes when we collected it. However, the water allows us to search for more species and organisms we may not have seen thus far. 
When we got back to class we continued what we did last service learning day and went through each string in our bucket and the species in the water. This takes some time but it is interesting to see how many species stayed in the bucket after a month. We also continued the PCR process. Overall, we had a great service learning day.


Today we began by talking about our traps, and how we as a group would study and examine the organisms within each trap. Since we know it is not larvae season for the lobsters, we are beginning with examining the other species we can find within the water around the Newport area. After our brief meeting in the morning, we set out to collect half the traps set, and allow the others to continue to collect microorganisms. 
To replace our pipe trap, we took a bucket filled with holes and rope strung across. After stopping at Ace, we bought string to attach the new trap, and a weight to keep the bucket in the water. From there we went and collected the trap we placed in the back bay. We put it in another tub to collect any organisms attached, and could see them swimming around in the water. The new trap was then put underwater, and we headed back to Sage.

When our group returned, we cut the strings attached to our pipe and examined each string for any small life. This took some time because we wanted to make sure we collected everything we could. Then we examined the water and found more organisms floating and swimming around. After collecting as many as we could, we separated them by general species, such as shrimp, worm, etc. I learned that placing them in ethanol helped preserve their bodies, so we can continue to collect information on the species living in different locations. I really liked this experience because it showed the breakdown of microorganisms in the water. We only found about two large shrimp, but many small ones. After collecting the life, we discussed as a group what we found and how we will continue collecting data on the traps and going scuba diving on future service learning days.

Our group made progress today in the implementation of the traps we are using for data collection. For the first half of the day, Sierra, Anna, Ashton, Ryan, and I went out to Balboa to place two traps. We ran into some difficulties early on. We needed to find a place to attach each trap and a way to do so. In order to place them we decided rope, weights, and zip ties were necessary. 
Our COAST planning started today as our group worked to move forward. With the new information we obtained about how we are going to observe and trap the spiny lobster species, we were able to begin making the traps. Today we researched what other scientists have studied and what types of traps they made. I found it really interesting learning about how they studied the organisms. In addition, we looked at the overall behaviors, where they live, and the features of the lobsters. After the classroom time of about two hours, we continued to work on what previous scientists had completed. They started traps that had taken a while, and we decided to create our own along with starting to finish their work. This involved working with rope to thread it through the plastic squares we were given.
My name is Juliana Brandt. I am a senior in our COAST group, and I really enjoyed the group last year. I’m really interested in this project and hope it continues on for future students, because I have always liked marine biology. I love being able to go underwater and keep track of our environment.  This group gives us the ability to research our local waters in an interesting way that not many people get to experience and helps us learn about our environment and more about our oceans. Getting scuba certified has made me more excited to help research for our state.
x
After a trip to ACE we were able to use our materials to attach the traps to the sides of a floating dock. We quickly realized our need of creativity to attach weights to the ends of each tube trap because without them, they would float. The first trap was much easier to place because we did not have to go into the water. The string we bought was very useful to attach them in order to lower the trap sufficiently two and a half feet into the water. Each of the long zip ties is twenty four inches, so we used the ties to measure how far into the water we placed out traps. I learned how we really needed to think through each step to place the traps correctly.

Our second trap was more difficult as we needed to attach it to a wide cement pole. This required Anna to jump into the water and zip tie the tube to the pole. However, the pole kept slipping, so we worked together to come up with a solution. We threaded the string through the tube so the zip tie could hold the rope instead. This secured the trap as we wanted it to so the next service learning day we can hop back into the water to check the organisms that may be living within them.


Today was our second day of service learning. We began by planning out what our day and future days will look like for our group. Since we have not been diving yet and have not implemented traps, we created more traps and planned for our first dive. I really liked creating our own traps that we can place at different docks or towards the sea floor.
Towards the end of our day, we meticulously went through small dishes of algae and small organisms to study them and look at what they are. I really liked this part of the day because it was much more hands on and I think we learned how to identify what we are looking for as well as learned about sea worms and brittle sea stars.
For the future, I am very excited to dive and implement what we have been working on. This really is an amazing experience that we wouldn’t have the opportunity to do without Sage.

For future service learning days I want to continue working on the traps because I feel like that was a different and fun thing we did not have the chance to do last year. Trying to figure out how to create them was interesting. We drilled holes in buckets to make these traps. It was a challenge to complete as much as we expected to complete, but I think we all enjoyed it.

I would also like to try to make service learning more collaborative for the students this year because today seemed like we were not really working together as much as being taught. I know last year was difficult for us to find a plan, but this year we have a good idea of what we want to do. I think the students should lead this project more than our teacher leaders of the COAST group. Overall, I thought we made a bigger step to be able to research for our community.