NaGISA Team
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| NaGISA starting their beach collection |
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| NaGISA collecting at depth of 1 meter. |
Egypt 2009
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On Tuesday, January 5, 2010, the Niceville High School NaGISA Team began their collection on the Red Sea at Nabq National Park in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt.
We worked with Dr. Knowlton, NaGISA International Program Director, as well as Dr. Kimani, NaGISA Indian Ocean Coordinator, and Dr. Mohammed, a professor at Suez Canal Univeresity, to learn the official sea grass protocol.
After learning the protocol, the students were put in charge of teaching the protocol to a select group of students from Sharm el Sheikh College, a local K-12 school.
The weather was not perfect, so we chose to send our four strongest divers, Heather Caulkins, Montana Hobbs, Shreyans Patel, and Alexis Reddington, to collect an example sample so the Sharm students could see the analysis process.
We also successfully obtained five samples from the 1 meter depth with Dr. Kimani and his colleagues. Due to a lack of supplies, we were only able to sort through the sample and separate all the visible fauna.
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The second day was heavily concentrated in collecting the dive samples. We sent out all other divers in two different rounds, 7 meters and 15 meters.
In the 15 meter dive, Alexis Reddington, Tony Rustin, and Buddy Jackson, were able to bring up five successful samples. The second dive team performed the 7 meter dive. This dive team included Heather Caulkins, Desiree Babin, and TJ Brown.
They were able to sucessfully collect and bring up four samples. The majority of the samples were analyzed, and the organisms found were properly preserved. The specimens included macrofauna and seagrass.
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The third day consisted of additional analysis at the hotel. The samples from a rocky shores collection were taken and analyzed with the assistance of Dr. Kimani and his colleagues. We were successfully able to collect all organisms out of the samples using forceps and to preserve them all.