Author: Dr. Helen Walter

Sunday: Back home

Our last morning started with Breakfast with Jen. We’d presented her with a Mills dive club hat and gave her the check for the reminder of the money we’d raised for our coral trees. Some of us did a little gift shopping and a few goodbye’s on the island, while others finished packing and some…
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Saturday: Boat diving, but not

This one is a little late. It was a busy few days 🙂 We started out with breakfast, which Jen joined us for briefly. Then it was time to hear about artificial reefs. We talked about what makes an artificial reef including concrete blocks, or statues, helicopters, boats and other materials. Reefs, that are intentionally…
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Friday: Coral Cleaning

Sorry for the lateness of this one. Sophie was unfortunately not feeling too well at the time. However, here’s our blog for the day: Today’s blog post is from Sophie Conroy, my other Teaching Assistant for this class. There is nothing better than letting your inner child out every so often and that is exactly…
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Thursday: Sharks, Oh My!

Today’s Blog is written by Hayley Chamblin, one of our course Teaching Assistants. Our day started early this morning at 6:30. We had breakfast while it was pouring down with rain outside. After, while most were hurrying through the rain with umbrellas, I was running and jumping in puddles. I think swimming in the rain…
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Wednesday: Science Measurements

The day started with our regular breakfast, followed by an 8:15am meet at the boat. Gear up, and off we went to our first dive at Butcher’s Ban. Here we had a brief introduction into transects that we’d learned about yesterday. Jen, our scientist, dropped into the water first followed by our TA’s Hayley and…
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Tuesday: Coral Health

We started with Breakfast at 7am, and then headed down to the gear shed to grab our gear and get on our boat by 8:15am. Gear loaded we headed off for our first dive at Mandy’s Eel Garden where the students looked for signs of diseased coral. Currently we are learning that many of what…
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Monday: Last One In Is..

We started early this morning, grabbing our gear and getting to the dive shop at 6:30am. All the students checked out their Buoyancy Compensation/Control Device (BCD) and regulators. BCDs are what divers use to attach their tanks to themselves and also allow us to control where we are in the water column. You want to…
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On our way

For the last few days we’ve been going through logistics making sure we’re all ready to set off for our trip to Roatan, Honduras. This started Monday, when Chicora Martin, our Dean of Students who’s coming on this trip with us, Hayley Chamblin and Sophie Conroy, our trip Teaching Assistants, and myself (Dr. Walter) met…
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Almost There..

In about two and a half weeks we’ll be in Roatan, Honduras with a group of students from Mills College, Oakland. Until then.. arggg! First, the good. All our divers are trained and ready to go. For the last couple of weeks the few that weren’t trained have been braving the California winter. And it’s…
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SCI (STEM College iPads): Using Notability

Have you ever wondered what it’s like not to have a briefcase full of papers during the middle of the semester? Well, I can personally tell you it’s a wonderful feeling. Not because I still haven’t worked out how to eliminate grading (and not sure I’d ever want to), but the weight of carrying all…
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