Charger Enjoys Ocean Exploration
Source/Author: Raffi Darrow, Ebytes Editor
September 06, 2018
In the summer of 2018, two Chargers had the opportunity to attend Oceanography Camp for Girls (OCG), Zara Peters ‘22 Claire Bryant ‘22. OCG is an annual 3-week summer ocean science exploration program for young women hosted by the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida. Their mission is to inspire young women entering high school to consider career opportunities in the sciences. OCG provides hands-on, real-world science experiences in laboratory and field environments.
Campers are selected on an application basis, and must be a girl in Pinellas who is completing eighth grade. Zara Peters ‘22 first learned about the camp from Shorecrest’s eighth grade marine science teacher, Kathryn Jeakle. When Ms. Jeakle mentioned it to Zara, she said it was three weeks long, free, and for girls right in St. Petersburg. Zara was only slightly interested when she started filling out the application, but once she saw the introspective questions they were asking, she realized she had stumbled across something special.
“When I do science I feel... When I do sports I feel... A girl has a right to... A girl should always…” were some of the leading short answer questions on the application. Zara enjoyed thinking about who inspired her and why she was interested in oceanography.
“The ocean is one of my favorite things about science,” Zara remembers writing. “I’ll probably become a marine biologist because I’m fascinated with creatures in the ocean.”
A few weeks later two counselors from the camp came to Shorecrest to interview Zara. “When the interview was over, they asked my T-shirt size. That’s when I thought I really had a chance of getting to go to the camp and I started getting excited about it,” Zara reflected.
A few months later Zara received an email congratulating her on earning a spot in the camp, which consisted of 27 girls her age. The girls participated in field and lab explorations, spent a day at sea aboard a research vessel, enjoyed coastal marine field experiences, engaged in mock career interviews, and went behind the scenes at SeaWorld Orlando.
“I got to camp early every day because I was so excited.” Zara said. “During camp, we went on lots of field trips, there were three in the first week to Fort De Soto, Shell Key, and on a research cruise. On the very first day I was at Fort De Soto in the sediment group measuring sediment while wearing snorkel gear. We rotated stations and did seining, measured fish and studied wind patterns.”
“There was a lot of swimming, off a dock or at the pool at USF. On the second day we were swimming near Clam Bayou and dolphins swam toward us and right under the dock I was standing on! We could see them hunting and thrashing around in the water. Dolphins are my favorite marine animal,” Zara mused.
“The day we took the vessel that was docked at USFSP, we went to different locations in Tampa Bay and took water samples. People in the lab would measure different things in the water - PH, dissolved oxygen, alkalinity, salinity, all that stuff. We wore gear and hard hats and everything."
Zara continues, "We had a plankton net with a cup at the bottom. The net moved through the water, and we would hose it down so the plankton went down to the cup at the bottom. It’s tradition to drink some of the plankton, but I’m allergic to seafood so luckily I didn’t have to. It’s completely safe but a little - ugh. We looked at the remaining samples underneath a microscope. It was cool because we got to use all this super high tech stuff we’d probably never get to use ever again unless we went into that field.”
Campers also identified plants and marine life in locations around Tampa Bay. “I saw three pregnant seahorses, sea urchins, two puffer fish, crabs, and a scorpion fish,” Zara excitedly reported.
“The second week I spent a lot of time in the microscopy lab using electron microscopes. Tony, our mentor, had a diamond knife to cut microscopic pieces of tissue. We looked at our own hair under the microscopes. At the end of camp we each made a presentation and mine was about the microscopy lab.” (Pictured, top.)
“It was really hot at times, but overall they made camp super fun. I think this camp may help me with more science opportunities in the future. Ms. Jeakle has been talking to me about a dolphin identification program Shorecrest Upper School may take part in for the first time this year.”(Jessica Powell from NOAA Fisheries will be presenting the dolphin photography opportunity to Upper School students on Monday, September 24.)
“I’m so thankful I went to OCG! It was super amazing! And thanks to Ms. Jeakle. This amazing summer never would have happened if it wasn’t for her. I’m so grateful she thought of me for the camp. I probably wouldn’t have done it otherwise, and I gained such a great interest.”
