Marine Lab (or, Manatees are Magical)

Each year at my school, the AP Biology and Oceanography students are given the opportunity to go on a trip to Key Largo, Florida to spend a few days at Marine Lab.  Seeing as how I am the Oceanography teacher, I get to join that trip, too!  This year was my second year and, while it wasn't 80 degrees like last year, it was pretty glorious.

The kids have an opportunity to learn all about coral reef ecology, snorkel, and be out of the freezing cold weather of Northern Virginia February.  Even better, the teachers who attend are chaperones.  WE don't have any job besides that!  The instructors at Marine Lab are young, fun, and smart!

The chaperone group this year consisted of me, the AP Biology teachers, our boss, and two other chaperones (my best school buddies, Christina who is our Department Chair, and Nick, whose name is actually spelled Nic, but I've been spelling it wrong for nearly two years already, so why stop now?)

Like I said, we did a lot of snorkeling.  I love snorkeling.  It is so relaxing.  In addition to going snorkeling on this trip, I got some sweet new sunglasses at the nearby Walgreens.  

It is known that everyone has really good hair whilst at Marine Lab.

While the kids were busy doing stuff like sitting through lectures or working on labs, the chaperones goofed off.  This year, we started a hot new trend: The Iguana Selfie.  #Iguannaselfie

 These crazy invasive species are very beautiful and very fun to take selfies with.  They just sit there looking pissed off while you act a fool.

So, Marine Lab is in Key Largo, FL right on Largo Sound (see below).  It's warm there.  Lots of beautiful vegetation grows, such as gigantic split leaf philodendrons.

Did I mention that there is a lot of goofing off on the part of the adults while the kids are working?  It's true.

There is also an underwater hotel right where Marine Lab is located, and this is the command van for the hotel.  I guess when someone is in there, a person has to stay in the Command Van (it looks cramped and moldy) to be sure everything is alright down there in the lagoon.  I look like the Command Van Boss, don't I?

I must give credit to Nick for this great picture of Ben (our boss) and Christina. He's a good photographer.

Jumping around a bit: On our last day in Florida, we visited the mangroves for some snorkeling.  It's my favorite part of the trip.  You just go (far away from the students) and sit there, and you can see so much amazing stuff.  Here are some organisms the Marine Lab instructor picked up while we were out there:

Back to goofing off.  While the kids were in labs/classes at night, we have intense game time.  Here are Julia, Nick, and Ben preparing for a major game of competitive bananagrams.  We also played very intense games of Spot It and colored sticks.  It was all very mature and quiet, to be sure.

Speaking of Mature:
This is a sign that I saw last year and had to get the new updated version. Last year, only the guy on the far left was there. Since then, he has reappeared (40 years later), and apparently his son or someone is in on the family business, too.  Sexy.

Also mature: The name for this sea cucumber is Donkey Dung Sea Cucumber.

These are some of my Oceanography students hard at work in the lab.  The boys in this picture are working on a sponge lab where they look at spicules. 

This is the Diversity Lab - one of the kids favorites.  They look at how many different types of organisms are living in these rocks.

This is Queen Conch.  They were all over the place in the sea grass beds near the coral.  We also got to see a Giant Horse Conch eating one of these Queen Conchs.

Here's the whole 2015 Marine Lab crew just before we left to head back to the cold. Fun times were had by all!

I will leave you with the very best part of the trip.  Manatees.  I had been hoping to see some up close the whole trip.  Other people saw sharks and sea turtles, which I didn't see, sadly.  All I wanted was a manatee. And I got two!!!  These guys came right up to where they dock the boats by the Marine Lab cafeteria.  They like to scratch their backs on the bottoms of boats.  It was potentially the most exciting thing to ever happen in my life.  That is a slight exaggeration.  But only slight. As Julia so aptly put it, they are giant blobs of love.  I love them and I want one.  I also want to swim with one, but that's illegal because they are Endangered species so you can't touch them.  BUT they can touch you!  NEXT YEAR, MANATEES!