Sturgeon City Institutes 2004
Coverage by the Media Institute.

Science Institute
Maritime Forest Expedition
By: Annie Purcell and Brittany Starzynski

Look what we caught.

Students of the Marine Science Institute wandered helplessly through the unknown path to scientific discovery Tuesday.
After battling ants, cacti, and mosquitoes, the Marine Science and Advanced Marine Science Institute students listened to Pete Black, the forester on Camp Lejeune, speak about life in the Maritime Forest located on Onslow Beach. He discussed his job and the basics about the forest. He encouraged the students to explore as they will, but not to cause too much disturbances.
Soon after, students gathered around Pat Donovan-Potts, a marine scientist of Sturgeon City, as she explored the theory of why there are no tall trees in the forest. The example was observed through the stance of a single student. The student was chosen and told to make a soccer stance in which he was than pushed. He fell over. He than bent in a basketball stance giving him more stability and was unable to fall. In turn tall trees in a short tree forest will not survive; they will be destroyed by the hurricanes and strong winds. In lamer terms, only the short will survive.
Most-remembered plants in the forest would be the wax myrtle, live oak, prickly pear, white juniper and the Easter red cedar.
Compliments of the forest were received by the students as mosquito bites, ant bites and as our very own media student, Alexa Dixon, who endured a large horsefly bite.
After spending time in the Maritime Forest, and collecting names on the various trees, shrubbery, and smaller critters the groups headed out to the Intercoastal Waterway, where they caught fish, crabs, shrimp and plankton. Students spent time in the waterway collecting data on the pH, temperature, salinity, and density.

Collecting data.

Other students like Roy Tootle helped chase animals into the seining nets. Once the animals of the waterway were caught you could here various screams of “Gooseberries, Gooseberries!” These screams were the actual voices of excitement of students finding an organism called a Ctenophore, which is a very distant cousin of the jelly fish. The “Gooseberry,” as students would like to say, is a clear jelly type of organism that is found all over in the waterway. Along with the “Gooseberry,” other interesting creatures were blue crabs, fiddler crabs, hermit crabs, minnows of various species, blue fish and pipe fish.
As the students continued on their journey in the Intercoastal Waterway they found a species unknown to a few institute leaders. These two tiny fish, one brown and white the other green and white, were similar to a seahorse. Rushing these fish to Donovan-Potts students found that they are related to the seahorse, explaining where they get their looks, and are called “file fish”.
Lindsey Dentel of the Stars group said “The file fish are cute, and cool.” James Knoll, and Tripp Waller from the moon group both exclaimed the “Catching Crabs” was the most enjoyable part of the day.

back to main page