We have another set of observations from our student group.
Brittany: incredibly long day but incredibly interesting day. It was really cool being able to see the dolphins in the morning and how active they were. And it was awesome to go snorkeling and see all the fish and coral. A long day but I learned a lot.
Marc: It was amazing to start the day seeing the dolphins and looking across to Bailey’s Key and not seeing lots of movement but then getting in the boat to the key and seeing their activity pick up after we arrived and throughout the session this morning. There was more activity than I thought there would be.
Alexa: I loved starting off the day getting to see how the dolphins behaved, even before breakfast it was neat getting to see the dolphins’ routine in the morning and seeing the scientific part of the research. And, in all this heat and humidity it was very refreshing to snorkel and to see all the species of fish I’ve never before seen.
Emily: Snorkeling was definitely a new experience but it was cool to see all the colors of the coral. My favorite was the common sea fan and all the little fish.
Ashley: I had a lot of new experiences today and all of them were super educating and interesting and I really enjoyed snorkeling for the first time and all that goes along with that. I also really really enjoyed getting to be close to the dolphins during feeding time because it was a good chance to examine their identifying marks.
Sarai: Today I was especially appreciative of our mentors Kathleen and Dr. Kanatous because today was a new experience – the snorkeling. The mentors fostered a lot of trust and that was very important to me.
Kirsten: I was fed a lot of information today in the most positive way. I learned so many things – for example what kids of fish are on the Roatan reefs. I got to practice identifying the dolphins and getting better knowing which dolphin is which by their marks. I learned the answers to some questions about dolphin sleep and I received clarification about dolphin physiology by doing pushups. (Thank you for supplying today’s photo of Lenca and French (on right).)
Nathan: A really eventful day and I think my favorite parts were the fish identification parts. And, we learned all the different signals the trainers use to ask the dolphins to do things. Meredith showed us the baby retrieval signal to ask Bailey to bring Tank back over to her.
Alison: it was really cool this morning when we were with the dolphins – seeing them come up to our group and to see they really wanted to interact with us. And, hearing the trainers talk about the dolphins and to see the types of training they do with the dolphins for enrichment was super cool.
Sean: The morning was alive with color and excitement for a day filled with good work. The data observation group I worked with was great and I appreciated their hard work and diligence to do good observations. The dolphins Bailey, Calli and Sandy (I think) came by our station. Learning the social curiosity and intelligence of these creatures is a privilege and consider it grace to continue to spend time with the RIMS dolphin pod.
Until tomorrow, we look forward to another great day!
Our new moniker is:
Dr. Kanatous’ Kindergartners (aka Roatan Rams 2021)