Last updated: June 8, 2020
Video
A Day in the Life of a Park Volunteer
Transcript
( music playing )
John: Hi my name is John…
Daniella: Hi I’m Daniella.
John: …and today we’re at the Rosenstiel School
of Marine and Atmospheric Science
with the Biscayne National Park rangers,
and what are we doing today?
Daniella: We are getting coral that we’ve taken
from the reef and we are measuring it
to see how much its grown in the past six months.
John: We have two sites.
We have the artificial reef in the lab
and we have a lab site out in Biscayne National Park
and we have to compare
the different growth rates in the two spots.
John: Alright, so now we’re in the lab
where the work takes place.
Daniella: As you can see,
they’re measuring the coral
and they have numbers for them
and they’re going to later
put this information in the computer.
John: When you put them in the computer,
they have this system that actually counts the polyp count
and calculates the surface area of the coral
so they can compare it to before and after measures.
Daniella: They can see how much it has increased in size
and how well the coral is doing.
John: So now we’re at the coral holding tanks
where the coral is stored, and they keep them here
until they go into the lab and they have to measure them.
Daniella: This coral was taken from a wreck.
There was a wreck there and the reef got destroyed,
so they took the bigger pieces of coral
and as you can see they fragmented them into smaller pieces
so they could attach them to the tile.
John: Each fragment is put on a separate tile
and it is stored on these holding racks in the water
until they have to collect them
and bring them to the lab for recording.
Daniella: They also wait ‘til they’re big enough
so they can take them back to the reef
and cement them and they start growing
in their natural environment.
John: They have different organisms in here,
such as a sea urchin
and they have them in here to eat the algae
so the corals don’t get covered in algae and die.
John: Alright, well we have to get back to work now.
Daniella: Thank you for coming, and we hope you’ve learned
and enjoyed your time here
and gotten to see some of the things
we do here at the lab.
We’ll see you again very shortly.
Together: Bye!
(music)
[Transcribed by Gary Bremen]
Description
A Day in the Life of a Biscayne National Park Volunteer hosted by Daniela Escontrela and Jonathan Dorsey.
Duration
2 minutes, 26 seconds
Credit
Thomas M. Strom
Date Created
11/14/2011
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