Day 6

Where has the time gone? It's been going by so fast. Today was a learning day for everyone. We woke up pretty early again. They had tater tots for the first time for breakfast and I got a plate full. We walked down to the marine center where we had media camp. We talked about our photos and had a writing assignment where we had to talk about how our time so far has connected the different cultures. After we got a tour of the labs they are doing ocean acidification work by studying sea urchins. We then got a PowerPoint presentation from a ocean acidification researcher about the basic information on this subject. My sandles broke so i had to go to the student store to buy need sandles and these are much more comfortable so im happy. We then had lunch and then back to the center for more learning on ocean acidification. We got an emotional plea lecture from a very proment urchin fisherman who is well known dfor his work on fighting this subject. He said this subject is still very new and the field is wide open so this is great science this is what I want to go into. We then broke into 4 groups to see what actually happens. There was a dry ice experiment to represent carbon being released, jenga game with marine animals on it and you had to pull certain animals based on cards with issues on the ocean, a scientist from USC came to have us look at plankton and coral in a microscope and a video about ocean acidification. After we went to campus point and got to go into the ocean. There were no waves at all but a strong rip curent. We got to snorkel out to practice for Santa Cruz island and I went out to a kelp bed but the visibility was awful so you couldnt really see anything. The water was about 65 degrees so it was just like newport. I was out for about an hour and a half so it was awesome. After we walked back to the dorms, showered up, and ate dinner. Then we went down tomthe beach again and had a sunset picture taking event. The view is incredible and breath taking. I went off on my own and sat on a cliff and just watched everything and soaked it up. We got done early and had free time and played simulated call of duty on our floor..western vs middle eastern kids. I died valiantly in battle :(. Tommorrow we leave for Santa Cruz island for 3 nights and their is usually no Internet service so I may not blog for a while. I hope y'all have a great time and enjoyed this so far. Btw mom we did laundry today so don't worry. Shout out to Tyler Perkins cause he is really loving the blog. Ps..aneesha is the coolest Canadian ever, Halla told me a cool story and it goes Randy is a donkey who lives on the beach who woke up one day and went swimming and then went to sleep.the end...yeah she's weird....night!