Plankton is very important to all life on Earth. Plankton are the very bottom of the food chain as the primary consumer. Plankton get there energy through a process called photosynthesis, this is where they get there food from the sun. Energy is transferred from them by bigger fish eating the plankton, then bigger fish eating the fish that just ate the plankton and so on and so fourth. Without plankton, all life in the ocean would not exist.
To study plankton, we had to go out in the field and collect our own plankton. My class of about 25 all gotten into groups of 5 or less, then each team member would have a certain task he or she would have to accomplish. After we found out what we were going to do, we headed to the Kihei Boat Ramp in South Kihei to collect our plankton samples along with other data including the temperature, the salinity, and the turbidity. To collect the plankton, we used a special plankton net made from fine mesh, and then we would put the plankton into the water bottle. To get the turbidity we used the turbidity tube, how you use this tube is by looking through it with water in it, and if you can see the little disc in the bottom, the disc is called a Suki disc, then you measure how much water you have in the tube. To find the salinity, you use a little thing called a refactometer, what you do is you put a drop of water onto the blue part of the refractometer, then you look through the scope to see what the results from the graph gives you. We measured the temperature with a digital thermometer in Celsius, we recorded the temperature of the air and the water.
After we gathered all of our data at the Kihei Boat Ramp, we brought it back to the class room to find the number of plankton in our samples. To find the plankton, we needed to use a microscope to find all the plankton in our sample. While using the microscope, we had a cool program on the computer that allows to see what we see through the microscope on the computer screen. This program is called Proscope. With the help of the telescope, we were able to count our plankton samples in our pitri grids to record our findings in our notebook.
After i have completed my study of plankton, I have found out that plankton are usually more abundant in warmer water because plankton need sun light to live. I have also found from the research of plankton experts that you can find more species of plankton in warmer water rather than cooler water. The last thing i found was that, in our samples, the most abundant type of plankton was the copepod.
To study plankton, we had to go out in the field and collect our own plankton. My class of about 25 all gotten into groups of 5 or less, then each team member would have a certain task he or she would have to accomplish. After we found out what we were going to do, we headed to the Kihei Boat Ramp in South Kihei to collect our plankton samples along with other data including the temperature, the salinity, and the turbidity. To collect the plankton, we used a special plankton net made from fine mesh, and then we would put the plankton into the water bottle. To get the turbidity we used the turbidity tube, how you use this tube is by looking through it with water in it, and if you can see the little disc in the bottom, the disc is called a Suki disc, then you measure how much water you have in the tube. To find the salinity, you use a little thing called a refactometer, what you do is you put a drop of water onto the blue part of the refractometer, then you look through the scope to see what the results from the graph gives you. We measured the temperature with a digital thermometer in Celsius, we recorded the temperature of the air and the water.
After we gathered all of our data at the Kihei Boat Ramp, we brought it back to the class room to find the number of plankton in our samples. To find the plankton, we needed to use a microscope to find all the plankton in our sample. While using the microscope, we had a cool program on the computer that allows to see what we see through the microscope on the computer screen. This program is called Proscope. With the help of the telescope, we were able to count our plankton samples in our pitri grids to record our findings in our notebook.
After i have completed my study of plankton, I have found out that plankton are usually more abundant in warmer water because plankton need sun light to live. I have also found from the research of plankton experts that you can find more species of plankton in warmer water rather than cooler water. The last thing i found was that, in our samples, the most abundant type of plankton was the copepod.
1 comment:
Nice Job Sean. Interesting intruction information - explain that phyoplankton are primary producers and go through photosynthesis, then are eaten by zooplankton, the primary consumers. Interesting result information too. Do you have a picture of you guys sampling or of plankton to add? Excellent work! Ms. V
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