Lab work

As you may have been able to tell, our time in the Three Seas Program is a bit unique. Even between trips to Maine and diving each week, our class schedule is still anything but normal. On a typical day, we will spend about a third of our time in lecture, a third out in the field, and a third in the lab. We only have one class each day (even though it lasts for about 7 or 8 hours), which allows us to focus our efforts and apply what we learn in lecture immediately in the field and in lab.

This week, in our invertebrates class, we covered Arthropods. In case you're not familiar with them, this group includes popular species, such as crabs and lobsters, and less popular species like spiders and scorpions. After four hours of lecture we headed to the lab to dissect lobsters and identify their internal bits. We froze them ahead of time so that they wouldn't suffer through the process and then started cutting them open. We identified brains, hearts, digestive systems, and a host of other important organs.

We were a bit too queasy to eat them afterwards and we kind of butchered the yummier parts in our dissection anyway, but the crabs in the visitor touch tanks were quite happy to help us dispose of what was left of the each lobster.