Beach Profiling etc. Ella E.

We went to the UMASS Field Station, on April 6th 2015. The purpose of this feild trip was to learn about beach profiling, and do it ourselves. It was sunny, with a light breeze, and we walked down to the beach learning about longitude and laditude on the way. On our walk to the beach we observed plants and predicted when they would bloom. We did this because it segued into climate change. Climate change is problem we are dealing with, and affects not only humans, but plants and other animals. When we got to the beach it was a little bit windier, but still calm and sunny. First we found our wrack line (tide line or highest point the water has come up to). We then  took a monument or pole, and dug it into the ground where the fixed point was. Then we took the emery rods, and starting to come up with numbers for the different  changes in the beach during the four times checked a year. Our numbers were consistently negative as we alined the rod with the horizon, until we came across a little pile of debri. This changed the steady decrease in slope. This number was positive. I noticed that from the begining of the measurements, to the end, the numbers went down. For example our first measuement was -0.94 but the 7th measurement was  -0.27. As we were leaving the beach, we encountered a college group. They wer studying fitoplankton and zoplankton. Fitoplankton is a plant plankton, whilezoplankton is animal plankton. As we walked further towards the cars, we stopped to watch an osprey fly with a fish in it's mouth. The fish was most likley still alive, and had to experience torture for a few minutes. Overall this fieldtrip was a  great way to learn about not only beach profiling, but bud bursts, climate change, different creatures and all of nature!