BIOL 482: Coastal Biology This study abroad program was embedded in the course BIOL 482: Coastal Biology, taught by Dr. Iliana Baums. The traveling taking place during Spring Break. In addition to learning about marine ecology and issues, throughout the first half of the course, we students designed our own project proposals to carry out in Curaçao. After review of an anonymous panel, my project was one of the three projects selected to pursue.
While I had been working on an independent research project in Dr. Baums's lab in the semester prior to and during the semester of the trip, managing this class project was a huge learning experience for me. I experienced the difficulties of fieldwork - particularly staying organized while trying to stay afloat snorkeling and managing the data collection of others at the same time. While my results were insignificant due to low sample size, I was still very proud and grateful for the experience. In addition to project pursuits and exploration while in Curaçao, we students got to interact with Dutch students at the CARMABI research center. All of the students' projects and backgrounds were very interesting.
Below is my project proposal and final paper with data from the trip. The image above is of my class and I exploring the intertidal zone of the coastline along Christoffelpark in Curaçao.