Amber Padgett: Marine Biology, Week One

Amber Padgett

My name is Amber Padgett and I’m a student at Norwood High School. During my Pinhead Internship I’ll be spending part of the summer learning about marine biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Marine Science Institute.

I landed in Santa Barbara around 1 p.m. Saturday afternoon (6/4). By Monday at 8 a.m., I found myself wandering around the UCSB campus, map in hand, trying to find the Research Experience and Education Facility (REEF). Several hours later, I was holding sea stars, meeting the undergraduates who keep REEF running smoothly, and learning how to take care of the animals and the facilities.

These are the temperate tanks in the REEF. They include sea hares, sea stars, sea urchins, lobster, crab, sharks, and many other animals. The rectangular tanks are the “touch tanks”, and everyone is allowed to reach in and grab any animal they want.

REEF is a lab that consists of several tanks. There are two tropical tanks and several temperate tanks. Within the tropical tanks you can find Nemo and Gill from “Finding Nemo,” and about 10 other species of tropical fish. The temperate tanks hold anything from swell sharks to sea stars. There are so many different species within the reef, it’s amazing!

Every day this week, I met at least three new people. They were extremely helpful; they taught me how to take census and water quality, which is basically just checking the temperature of the tanks, and making sure that all the vertebrates within the lab are still alive and healthy.

This is one of the two tropical tanks. This tanks has 11 different species of fish in it. Each day the fish are given a small cube of chopped up food through a long funnel accessed via ladder.

Next, they taught me how to prep the food. I helped in shelling muscles and making squid halves. The squid halves were my favorite. We basically pulled on the heads of the squid, which pulled all the guts out along with it. Then we squeezed the body to make sure nothing was left inside, and then cut them in half. It wasn’t the best smell that I have ever encountered, but how many people can say they pulled the guts out of a squid?

This is the beach about 30 seconds away from the REEF. All of the animals living in the REEF were obtained off the coast of Santa Barbara.

This week was basically an orientation, but made me extremely excited about the next 5 weeks! Within these first 5 days I’ve learned an incredible amount, and I’m looking forward to expanding my knowledge about marine biology even more!