Week 5- UWF

By Emily Williams

     This final week at UWF was full of different activities that made this week very memorable. Despite the rainy forecast the majority of the week, we made the best out of it and continued with our planned activities. We traveled to many locations around Pensacola including carpenter creek and Bayou Texar to collect water quality samples. It was very interesting learning the correlation of total suspended solids, nutrients, and chlorophyll a as you move through the watershed (from the start of the creek to the bayou). We also saw the horrible effects of building on a riparian zone and of hardening surfaces. At the first site on carpenter creek, cement was used in order to try to prevent erosion but this project was failing because where the cement ended, the landscape was rilling away and eroding very fast. We also learned about the natural event of fish deaths due to Bayou Texar’s water stratification and hypoxia in the summertime. Another interesting experience this week was learning beach geomorphology and using the engineer's level to map out the dunes.

Me holding a meter stick for a classmate
reading out of the engineer's level to map the beach

Us on the hardened surface at a site along Carpenter Creek

     This week was amazing in concluding this class. Overall this class was such an amazing experience that has taught me so much about the different environments around Florida, organisms within those environments, and techniques to study these organisms and ecosystems. This class also introduced me to the many jobs and opportunities out there that sparked my interest. I am excited to start research within the next year and I think this class has prepared me for some of the classes and research methods to come. Thank you to everyone who made this class possible. This class has made a difference in my life and I am sure many others feel the same way.