Spend 1.25 hours conducting a salt marsh transect and 1.25 hours using seine nets to complete a nearshore fish study.

Teams of students will lay transect lines along the marsh and work along them to quantify abundances of animals and vegetation, peat depth, marsh elevation, and water chemistry.
Students will also use seine nets to collect nearshore fish and other organisms along the shore. They will study diversity and abundance, as well as size related to the age of marine organisms.

To prepare for this trip: Students should wear boots or water shoes. We will be walking in the marsh, which can be wet and muddy. No flip flops please. For the seining portion, students will have the opportunity to wade into the water to use the seine nets. Students should wear shoes that can get wet if the weather is warm. Old sneakers, Crocs, Keens or other water shoes work well. If the weather is cool, Project O will provide a few pairs of waders or boots for students to borrow. Students may choose to bring a pair of dry shoes to change into after the trip.

Bluff Point State Park is entirely outdoors- there is no gazebo or covered area. There are picnic tables available for meal times before or after the program. The park is a carry in-carry out space, there are no trash cans on site. There are restrooms available at the picnic area closest to the parking lot. A note for buses: if using a charter bus, there is a bridge at the entry of the park that is too low to allow the charter bus to pass through (school buses do fit under this bridge). Charter buses can make a drop off before the bridge and participants can walk to the picnic areas (about a 5 minute walk).