This week we have placed orders for all of the materials we need to get the tank set up and running. There has not been time yet to get back to the tank and get it ready for the project and begin putting the materials in it. An initial task for us was to plan dates to come in over winter break, but because there will not be live oysters that need care, we decided to come in the first monday to get everything set up because we expect to have all of the materials by then. We have also started planning our mid-year presentation; we have gained approval to present to Ms. Nutter's Environment Science II class, we just need to specify a date. Something we still need to address is gaining access to oysters, so right now we are emailing someone from Horn Point who we previously emailed, but hopefully we will hear back now because we have narrowed down our ideas and goals for the project. We are finalizing procedures for introducing oysters into the tank once we get them and the introduction of microplastics in the test group. Something else we need to think about concerning the test and control groups are setting up the additional tank, which we may have, but if the one we have cannot be used, another tank will be ordered and arrive before break is over. The next actions that will be taken are to unpack all of the materials and get them set up with the tank, as well as find a source that we can get oysters from.
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Over the past week we emptied the water from the tank and have been narrowing down the final materials list. We have been talking to Tara and Phil to figure out certain types of filters and other equipment that would work best for the tank, but because of our timeline we may just order what we can find just to get everything set up. We also ran into the problem of where we will get oysters from once the tank is up and running, which is something we have to figure out. We began planning the second part of our project where we will conduct an actual experiment using the oysters. We are going to test the effect of microplastics on the filtration rate of Eastern oysters and have been designing this over the past week. Right now we are going to listen to the audio recording from the meeting with Tara and use this information to gather the rest of our materials. For next week we plan on putting the substrate, water, and instant ocean into the tank as a starting point. We will also have all of our materials ordered and continue planning out the experiment with microplastics so we will have time after winter break to get everything accomplished.
Before break we finished our final project proposal, which was what we worked towards for the first trimester. It outlined the background research, experiment, materials, and all aspects we need to put the project into action. We met with Tara Scully from George Washington University who was very helpful and told us about the experimenting they are conducting with oysters. She also went over the general process of maintaining a tank and told us we could potentially get in contact with Horn Point to receive oysters. We have set up our google calendar and research notebook that organizes and keeps track of the work we have to do for each day. Currently we have sent in orders for the first set of materials and are going to remove water from the tank and identify the equipment underneath the tank to see what other materials we need to order. Our next steps are to listen to the audio recording from our meeting with Tara and order the rest of the equipment we need to set up the tank.
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December 2016
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