Category Archives: PC Students at Race Rocks

Transect Study- Environmental Systems Class peg-15

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PEG 15 TRANSECT
ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS CLASS

transect_gfApril 1998: For this Exercise, a section of gently sloping shoreline to the East of the Docks at Peg #15 was chosen.(large old original oil-barge docking post  This intertidal zone rock is exposed to the North West, but protected by the corner of Great Race Island projecting to the West. The transect was laid at a bearing of 285 degrees. Maximum exposure of the area occurs when the wind blows from the North East in the winter months. This work was done in April when the area experiences the first of the low tides in the early part of the day.

 

 

RoyalRoadstransectAlso see the images of the Royal Roads students working on peg 15 in the summer of 1999.

The following is the transect strip. It will take a few minutes to download the whole strip ..

The photos for the transect strips were taken in 8mm video by Sebastian and Garry after the class recorded the details of species distribution over the 50 cm strip, running perpendicular to the shoreline.

Images of the students were scanned from slides taken by Duane Prentice, a professional photographer who lives in Victoria and is an Alumni of Pearson College.. Images copyrighted, 1999 by Duane Prentice.

PEG 15 : PHOTO BELT TRANSECT
Bearing 285 degrees. This area has a fairly constant slope for the 12.5 meters over a vertical range of 3 meters.The photos, one half meter in length, were taken from a video at low tide, in APRIL 1998 by Garry and Sebastian.
Investigation: 1. Plot a profile of the shoreline given the information provided.2. Determine the percentage coverage of the different species of algae shown.3. The physical factors of the habitat of an algae living high in the intertidal zone like Porphyra changes with the seasons. In this area, our low tides occur in the daytime in the summer and in the night time during the winter. It would be revealing to compare the exposure during the daytime in February or March with the exposure in June. First determine from the profile drawn above, the range of tidal level where this species lives intertidal. Then go to the data page where you can access the Tidal Predictions for Race Rocks . From the tidal level profile for Victoria, you will be able to see a graph of the tide levels .Determine how many hours this Porphyra will be exposed to the air by recording the cumulative lengths of time that the water level does not go above the lower limit of the algae. If you do this for different times of the year, you will be able to quantify the time spent submerged or emmerged over a number of days. Be sure to take into account the time of the tidal cycle when choosing days to measure, because you will notice a two week pattern of Spring ( maximum range ) and Neap( minimum range) tides.

Based on your evidence, suggest a hypothesis that could explain why this algae disappears from this area for most of the summer.

BELT TRANSECT PHOTO

Distance in metres from peg 15 is at the bottom of the picture 
Comments and species identification follow the pictures

Notes: at 0.5 metres: This is the upper level just below peg15 The yellow lichen at the top by the peg is Xanthoria parietina
At 1.0 Metres : Life is very sparse in this high splash zone, although a prominent invertebrate that we find is the tiny red miteNeomolgus.sp.
At 2.0 metres: Life is very sparse in this high splash zone, although a prominent invertebrate that we find is the tiny red mite Neomolgus.sp
At 3.5 metres: A few barnacles are starting to appear in the moist crevices.
At 6.5 Metres :Barnacles almost totally cover this areas for several meters
At 8.0 metres: The sea lettuce, Ulva lactuca starts to appear.
At 9.5 metres: The brown algae here is Alaria sp
At 11.5 metres: The wrinkled brown algae: Hedophyllum sp.
At 12.5 metres : The green grass-like plant is Phyllospadix sp , (an Angiosperm, not an Algae)

See Transect A0050101
See Transect A0050102
See Transect A0050103

___________________________________________________________

Return to the Contents page for Environmental modelling with Transects..

The Schools Project Archive 1997-98

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SCHOOLS FIELD LAB PROJECT: In the late 1990’s the Pearson College Diving Service ran a series of field trips involving students of grade seven classes in the Sooke School District.The field trips were to the Pilot Study Marine Protected Area of Race Rocks Ecological Reserve. The students of the Diving Service took responsibility for designing the curriculum, organizing the trips and conducting the field trips. The files below came from an earlier version of the Pearson College website. This page will show some of the images from those trips and the exercises the Diving Service members designed for the grade 7 students.

A special thanks to Duane Prentice (PC year4), now a professional photographer working out of Victoria, who has contributed his time and energy to help us build up a set of pictures on Race Rocks. Most of the schools program pictures above have been supplied by him.

Link to the Diving Service Schools Project 1999

OUTPOST- A video About Pearson College and Race Rocks

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http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/archives_2/vidday1.htm
This video was filmed by Alan Bibby in 1997. It features a visit by Dr.Joe McInnis to the islands to dive with students of Lester B. Pearson College.
Narration by Angus Matthews.

OUTPOST: RACE ROCKS
Marine Education Centre
See this file with stills and the script from OUTPOST

The Race Rocks Ecological Reserve as a Scientific Resource

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The first year Pearson College students are doing their IB Group 4 science Project coursework this year on Race Rocks. 

The following is a list of preliminary ideas given to the 100 students of the first year who will all be participating in an interdisciplinary study of scientific problems at the Race Rocks Ecological Reserve on March 26, 1997.

The list is intended to stimulate the students to generate research problems to be planned in groups before-hand and then investigated on that date.

 

THE RACE ROCKS ECOLOGICAL RESERVE

AS A SCIENTIFIC RESOURCE

Scheduled for: Mar 26 1997

 

The following is a list of preliminary ideas given to the 100 students of the first year who will all be participating in an interdisciplinary study of scientific problems at the Race Rocks Ecological Reserve on March 26, 1997.

The list is intended to stimulate the students to generate research problems to be planned in groups before-hand and then investigated on that date.

CONTAMINATION SITES:

  • iron in South tide pools
  • oiled soil near storage tanks

NATURAL PRODUCTS:

  • calcium carbonate in different shell species
  • natural materials as dyes
  • enzymes- reactivity rates in invertebrates
  • alginates and other chemicals in algae
  • pigments of algae
  • feathers

ENERGY:

  • solar energy panels and their output
  • biogas potential of algae
  • wind power – real, time and historical anemometer readings.
  • energy system of generators.

MATERIAL CYCLING:

  • nutrients of tidepool systems
  • nitrogen, phosphorous
  • strand line materials
  • human recycling system

ADAPTATIONS:

  • mussel attachment
  • seaweed holdfasts
  • desiccation prevention techniques
  • temperature moderation techniques-algae, invertebrates
  • crevasse adaptations of invertebrates
  • tidepool algae salt tolerance

ON-SITE MECHANICS:

  • fog horns (3 types)
  • winch (2 types)
  • generator
  • desalinator

PHYSICAL FACTORS:

  • salinity
  • ph
  • wind
  • waves
  • currents
  • temperature
  • light

BIOTIC FACTORS:

  • biotic associations
  • distribution patterns of organisms
  • behavior of organisms-invertebrates, marine mammals
  • productivity
  • human environmental impacts

THE TOWER AS A RESOURCE:

  • internal acoustics
  • trajectories
  • seismology
  • laser aiming
  • biophysics (-as an exercise machine)

MICROECOSYSTEMS:

  • tidepools
  • crevasses
  • rainbarrels
  • rock undersides

OTHER WILD IDEAS:

  • GPS exercises
  • ground-truthing satellite observations
  • surveying and mapping

Tidepool # 5

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Pool 5 viewed from Pool 6

This file has been started to present some of the information we have accumulated on the pool in order to stimulate students to raise further questions and devise problems that can be investigated at the pool. It is also intended to be part of a cumulative digital legacy that those examining the pool can pass on to future students.

 

Tidepool 5 when the surge is filling it.

Pool 5 with a compass bearing of 210 degrees from Peg 6 is only cut off from the open ocean at a very low tide so it has a number of invertebrates that need cooler water to survive. Some anemone and purple urchins and several snail species inhabit this pool.

The following is a student lab done on an analysis of this pool:

TIDE POOL LABORATORY

BY: SARA PAVAN, ROCIO GIL, ANA MARIA VEGA, MARIUXI ZAMBRANO

Introduction

THE INTERTIDALZone: It is an area occupied by a great number of individuals and species. It is sufficiently inundated by tides and waves that provide plant nutrients, Oxygen and plankton. It is the zone where tide pools form.The intertidal zone of Race Rocks is very rich of tide pools. They are conventionally numbered for the purpose of identification. The tide pool that was studied for this lab is pool #5.

POOL NUMBER 5: It is a very low pool but very high in biodiversity. It is located in an area very open to the swells of the sea.

STRUCTURE OF THE LAB

BIOTIC FACTORS: measurement of horizontal and vertical distribution.

ABIOTIC FACTORS: temperature and salinity.

AIM OF THE LAB: TO STUDY THE HIGH BIODIVERSITY IN THE LOW POOL.

PROCEDURE AND ANALYSIS.

In the middle of the tide pool and at point#1.1 temperature and salinity were measured. The table shows the data collected.

 

  salinity-parts per thousand  temperature °Celsius
 middle-surface  27.5 parts  9°
 middle-8 centimetres  28.5  9°

middle- 48 centimetres 9° 30

point 1- 8 centimetres 9° 28.5

point 1- 28.5 centimetres 9° 29

The above results were obtained in the morning and comparing with the results given by other groups at 4:00 pm, we can see that the temperature increased one degree.

The data collection process has caused some problems, as big swells came regularly every three minutes from 9:22 to 9:28, a smaller swell came at 9:31 and an even smaller one came at 9:36. At these times we had to clear a pool, this slowed down the process quite a bit.

The following species were found in the following points.

In point 2 Balanus was found at 20 cm. of depth to the surface. It was found also in point 3 at 23 cm. of depth to the surface.Two Anthopleura elegantissima were found at 25 cm. of deph. Two Purple Sea Urchins were found at the point of 1 metre of length, covered by rocks. Two cabezons were present as well as mussels. Fucus distichus algae were covering the left part of the pool.

Some of the species were weighed the same day that were collected.Then they were dried and weighed again, with the aim of obtaining the biomass. The next table shows the results obtained

Species Weight before dry Weight after dry Biomass

Corallina 14.1 g 4.8 g 34 %

Fucus 20.1 g 1.3 g 6.5 %

Green algae 8.7 g 0.6 g 0.6 %

Phylospadix (surf grass)  -10.5 g 2.3 g 21.9 %

 

To get the Biomass results we multiplied the dry weight for 100 and divided by normal weight.

To get more data about pool 5, we measured the amount of plankton of each sample of water. The results were that there was less plankton in the surface than in the bottom due to the constant exchange of oxygen produced by the waves

Measurements of the pool 5.

1.Aea: 34546.95 cm2

2.Length: 1449.65 cm.

To obtain these measurements, refer to this file on using NIH IMAGE

Obviously, the level of oxygen in pool 5 must be really high due to the huge diversity of animals and plants found. As we know, the plants produce oxygen and the animals consume it while producing carbon dioxide, which provokes an interaction increasing and decreasing the level of ph and oxygen  depending on whether sunlight is present for photosynthesis or not.

OUR EVALUATION.

From the beginning of the lab, we had some problems to take the samples due to the high tide that made the collecting of samples a lot more difficult. A more accurate study of the pool, could have been done by measuring the levels of ph and oxygen. Team work was effective, the effort came from everyone in the group and we succeeded in computer work by obtaining  excellent pictures and measurements of the pool.

Pearson College students plot tidal currents at Race Rocks

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n April of 1996, the Pearson College Environmental Systems Class planned a field lab which would enable us to present a profile of the currents around the Race Rocks Ecological Reserve. We had acquired a number of drogues as surplus which were used in current studies after the Alaskan Oil Spill. We have fitted them with radar reflectors so that we can determine the distances from the islands in our plotting process.

 

Archive: CoastWatch Photo Gallery

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Included here are some of our archival photos of the various activities that students were involved in the CoastWatch Program

 

 

In April of each year while CoastWatch was operating at Pearson College , the students of CoastWatch directed a clean up of Victoria area beaches. This usually involves students of the college as well as up to 20 other volunteer groups in the community .

Beach clean up at Trial Island near Victoria.Here Pearson College students pile beach debris on Trial Island near Victoria, B.C. and bring a load back for disposal at Pearson College.

Beach clean up at Trial Island near Victoria 

Grade 7 school children boarding the DUEN for a sailing trip

Over the years , our sailing program has involved taking those with mental and physical disabilities out on the ocean. The program has involved going to sea on the “DUEN”a classic sailboat that Mike and Manon Hobbis ran for field trips from the College. On it visitors in wheelchairs, and our friends from various community challenge programs got to try out different stations on the DUEN.

Renald Cousineau showing a sea cucumber to elementary school students.

In the spring and fall terms, we have had programs with the grade seven classes from local schools in our Schools Program visiting for trips in the Race Passage area of Southern Vancouver Island.

 

See the posts on the Schools Program in the later years.

 

The seafront at Lester Pearson College with the DUEN — taken from the air

The Duen is no longer with the college but up to recent years Mike and Manon, seen here with Phillipe Cousteau operated  Duen Sailing Adventures  along the Coast of British Columbia and Haida Gwaii

 

 

Return to the CoastWatch Introduction

 

An end of term party at Taylor Beach for some of the students of CoastWatch

Underwater Safari- October 1992

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In October of 1992, the diving students of Pearson College were able to help with the underwater filming for the Canadian Underwater Safari production. This series of 24 one hour television programs was broadcast live to schools and museum audiences across Canada and the US on the Anik E2 Satellite. Since that time the programs have been broadcast across the world. We have made available at this location some of the unique underwater footage which was taken by the photographer Darryl Bainbridge. The project was an experiment in using technology along with many volunteer hours to help to bring the fragile ecology of this unique area to the world. Our thanks to B.C.Parks for the intial funding to launch the production. The Royal B.C. Museum and its staff , Shaw Cable, BC Systems, BC Tel and many volunteers who provided assistance with this project.

 This video is of Pearson College student Jason Reid ( PC yr. 18) discovering a wolf eel Anarrhichthys ocellatus while the program was broadcasting live. Cameraman Darryl Bainbridge followed the huge fish for some time and caught it feeding on a green sea urchin.

OTHER REFERENCES TO THIS PROGRAM ARE IN THESE POSTS: 

 https://www.racerocks.ca/tag/underwater-safari/

Living on a shelf off the North side of Great Rocks is a Wolf Eel often seen by divers. This very gentle fish cooperated with us for one session allowing some very interesting poses. On this dive, Jason Reid (LBPC year 18) encounters the wolf eel

 

The fish shows patience while looking for its favourite food

Jason offers the wolf eel a green urchin

as it eats, clouds of urchin roe puff out of he urchin

Swimming away with his “catch”

A harbour seal was inquisitive with the divers

A gentle nose to nose with a diver

 

There was a video published by the Friends of the Royal British Columbia Museum and authored by Brent Cooke and Roger  Frampton on the Underwater Safari program: the following gives information on it.

https://www.worldcat.org/title/canadian-underwater-safari/oclc/41934389#borrow

The CoastWatch Program Lester Pearson College 1998

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CoastWatch at L.B. Pearson College

CONTENTS of this document
1.OVERVIEW
2. OBJECTIVES
3. STRUCTURE OF THE PROGRAM
4. TIME INVOLVED
5 THE CORE
6. SPECIALTY TRAINING
7. SCHOOLS PROGRAM
8. THE COASTWATCH PHOTO GALLERY
9. THE FACULTY

1. OVERVIEW:

In the fall term of 1991, the CoastWatch program at Pearson College was developed from the previously existing marine activity and service programs. As many as 80 students may be involved in this program. Since it’s beginnings, CoastWatch has undergone a number of changes, and today it consists of students of the diving program, the kayaking program and the sailing program. The amount of afternoon and weekend time in the program is determined largely by the level of interest and commitment of the students. Some students participate regularly in the program two afternoons a week, and are able to do aspects of social service and environmental service as well as the training phase of the program. Others do it as an activity once a week. The success of the program depends very much on the initiative of the students involved to help with the organization and instructional aspects.

2. OBJECTIVES:

Students and faculty involved in CoastWatch will have the opportunity to:

1. Learn and put into practice specialized skills to enable them to work safely in the marine environment.

2. Develop attitudes of teamwork in the carrying out of objectives in the marine environment.

3. Enhance their awareness of coastal environmental issues and be involved as part of a marine-based environmental action group.

4. Interact with the local community, both in providing and receiving environmental education opportunities.

5. Interact with the local community for the purposes of providing activity and adventure education.

6. Work with sharing of skills and experiences with members of the disabled community.

3. STRUCTURE OF THE PROGRAM:

The program operates on the basis of several types of training modules. Students work through a core program that give all a common experience, this occurs throughout the two years in the program at the college. Branching off from the core are a number of specialty modules that enable students to develop more detailed skills necessary for the operation of some programs.

4. TIME INVOLVED:

During the first term, first year students in diving are committed for two afternoons per week for the training phase, or for one afternoon in the kayaking or sailing program.
In the second term, first year students have the chance to gain in experience in many of the aspects of the objectives listed above. They may take the opportunity to expand their involvement in the program to be involved with more of the objectives. In the second year, the students will take on a greater role in running the program.

5. THE CORE:

(Theory and Practical : these may take place over the two terms of the first year)

  • Shore-front management
  • First-Aid at sea
  • Small craft handling and safety
  • Snorkeling at Sea
  • Swimming and life-saving skills

Those who so choose may get into the following aspects as well:

  • Coastal Ecology
  • Oil spill response
  • Beached-bird program
  • Education for the outside community at sea
  • Working with the physically and mentally challenged
  • Coastal Restoration
  • Salmonid enhancement

Whereas the Core programs will be done by all CoastWatch students (first and second year), the following will be done by fewer students and at varying times. Hopefully all students by the end of their first year would to be able to contribute by training in their specialties in the second year. The selection of the following could be determined with priority being given to achieving a good balance in the students’ program over a two year period.

6. SPECIALTY TRAINING,

Theory and practical: (students will select a program containing some of the following training components for their first year, depending on when these can be offered.)

  • Marine Radio Operator
  • Marine Navigator
  • Motor Vessel Maintenance
  • Motor Vessel Assistant Instructor
  • Sail Training Assistant Instructor
  • Kayak Training Instructor
  • Safety-training Assistant Instructor
  • SCUBA diving Assistant Instructor
  • Oil-spill response instructor Oiled-Bird Response
  • Community coastal clean-up organization
  • Ecological Monitoring Module
  • Coastal Environmental Issues
  • Schools environmental instructor
  • Working with the physically and mentally challenged

 

7. SCHOOLS PROGRAM

In these links are some of the aspects of the Schools Program for the local community. The students of the Diving Activity provide marine education for local elementary schools.  1997-98,  and 1999 

8. THE COASTWATCH PHOTO GALLERY

Kayaking with the disabled:

 

 

 

 

 

 

9. THE PEARSON COLLEGE FACULTY

  • DIVING FACULTY: Michelle Bridgett, Jeff Trapp or Garry Fletcher or Chris Blondeau
  • SAILING FACULTY:
    Robyn Tyner or Peter Gardner
  • KAYAKING FACULTY
    Richard Van de Lagemaat