Botanical Beach

14 June 2014Maddie M, Allard ‘15

To kick off the month of June, two Biology 11 classes boarded school busses early Saturday morning to begin our journey to Botanical Beach. For years students and researchers have come from all over the world to study here. Botanical Beach has extensive, lush, temperate rainforest but it is best known for its abundance of intertidal life. A visitor can find hundreds of species of plants and animals here. The organisms that live here must be able to handle a wide range of conditions. When the tide is out there are large changes in temperature, predators, and food sources. However, this also gives us exposure to beautiful tide pools, rich with diversity and thriving ecosystems. This is what my peers and I came to study on a beautiful, June morning. Reaching Botanical Beach Park at around 9:00am, just in time for low tide, we made our way through the forest and to the rocky beach landscape. Here, hidden between crevasses of weathered rock, were tide pools, giving life to many creatures while the sea was pulled away. This gave us a chance to examine the intertidal ecosystems and ask ourselves questions such as “How are the really narrow, but deep, tide pools formed?” and “Why are some of the rocks darker and what causes the color difference?” We learned that some plants and animals are specialists at handling the high impact waves found at Botanical Beach. The Gooseneck Barnacle (an animal) and the Sea Palm (a brown algae) are two of these. These organisms survive in the surf zone by being attached to the rock with flexible stocks that bend with the force of the waves. They are just two of the thousands of species of marine invertebrates that have adapted to the beach. We snacked, lay in the sun, took some time to simply sit and listen to the waves, and learned about biology the way it is supposed to be learned: immersed in the beautiful outdoors. I’ll admit that it wasn’t a bad way to spend my Saturday morning. The ice cream stop on the way back to Brentwood definitely wasn’t too bad either. It was a great way to spend the day; we all learned a lot and had a great experience with our friends. I hope that the school continues this trip for many years to come! Maddie M, Allard ‘15

Where Students Choose To Be