Day four: traveling to the keys

 By: Maddie Watts

Today we had started our day with breakfast at Hampton Inn in Miami. The hotel was brand new and super nice! Then we started making our two and a half hour drive down to Summerland Key. On our way down we stopped at The Shell Factory on Key Largo, where we could buy shells or souvenirs. Once we left there, we stopped at Robbie’s to feed the tarpon and the pelicans. Once we fed them we got shaved ice as a before-lunch dessert (we are on vacation after all.) And then our leisurely two and a half hour drive was interrupted when a charter bus caught fire; luckily no one was injured. Since there’s only one road in and one road out, our drive to the keys turned into four hours. Plan A for today was to go kayaking with Mote Marine at 2 PM. Unfortunately we didn’t get out of the traffic jam until 1:30 and we still hadn’t eaten lunch yet. Thankfully in the Keys plan B consists of extra beach time. While we were at the beach we were basically on our own ecotour because we found fossilized coral. Once we finally arrived at Mote Melanie made some orange chicken, rice, and vegetable stir fry, and egg rolls; it was all super good! We ended the night with cookies for dessert and school work.

 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Last moments in paradise

Image
We started the morning by waking up at a harsh 3:30 a.m.. We left around 4 to began our short ten minute ride to the airport. We returned our rental car once we arrived at the airport and traveled to the bag check and security. After waiting about an hour we began boarding at 5:30.     After a short taxi to the runway, we departed from Tampa at exactly 6:26. While we were in the air we got to watch the beautiful sunrise from the East. Overall the flight was good, very low turbulence if any. We began our initial decent at 7:57 and landed at 8:20. Sad to see this field trip end. I just want to thank Mr. and Mrs. Park for making this an experience we will all remember for the rest of our life. I am also so grateful for all the memories with these amazing girls. ​ By: Hanna Surfus
Read more

February 25, 2023: Arrival in Florida!

Image
​Our first day in Florida was a success! We had a wonderful flight from Indianapolis to Tampa, and then enjoyed lunch at Chick-fil-A. We were all able to register for TSA pre check, which made a much easier experience of getting through the airport without stress.  Three members of our group had never flown before, but it was a great first-time experience for them, as our flight went smoothly. We arrived in Tampa around 11:30, so we were able to get a great start on our day from there! Then, we traveled north to Honeymoon Island for a beach day! We were able to appreciate the 86 degree weather, cool off by swimming in the ocean, and scavenge for interesting shells along the shoreline. We found many of those, as well as sand dollars and coral! After leaving the beach, we drove to Crystal River and checked in to our hotel before going out to dinner at Peck’s Old Port Cove. There, we ate lots of seafood.  It is safe to say that this was the perfect start to our field trip, and we...
Read more

Day Six: Classroom

Image
​Today we went into the classroom and learned about different types of coral diseases and what can make coral sick. We completed a few fun activities to visualize what is happening to the coral reefs. We learned all about carbon dioxide’s effect on the ocean and it’s magnificent creatures. The first activity that we completed was the quadratic analysis of bleached coral populations. We learned all about global warmings effect on the coral. Increased temperatures of the ocean make the zooxanthellae (algae) leave the coral. The zooxanthellae give the coral it’s stunning color. When it exits the coral, the coral then appears to be bleached. For the quadratic analysis we were given a picture of a coral reef and then a five by five grid to place over the picture. We then had to figure out which coral colony is bleached or in the process of bleaching. We also learned that the increased carbon dioxide increases the acidity of ocean water. This is because the ocean absorbs 1/3 of the carbon di...
Read more