ELT Field Trip Report:

By: Lani Yap

For the first part of our field trip we went to the Chesapeake Beach. I went through handfuls of shells and sand trying to find fossils. I learned that fossils had been formed over time at that location as parts of the Appalachain mountains eroded and were washed into the sea. Traces of organisms preserved in rock from these mountains were eroded into pieces and washed onto the beach. I learned from Dr.Holtz that "fossils are the remains of an organism or traces of its behavior preserved in the rock record used to compare time in different places." I found several body fossils which were actually part of a once living organism. I was able to collect several sharks teeth and bones of mammals. This was such a fun and worthwhile experience for me to go digging and find remains of organisms that lived so long ago. It was a good hands-on experience that brought the concepts we've been talking about in class to life.

During the second part of the field trip we went to the Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary. We took a nice walk into the woods where we stopped to look at many of Mother Nature's wonders from a snake to turtles, orange mushroom-like fungus, and a beaver dam. I learned that a lot of the trees near where the beavers lived had lost all their leaves as a result of the beavers' work to build their dams. I also learned that the water level rises several inches above the lily pads and falls so that the lily pads rest at the surface of the water every day. This trip was interesting and I enjoyed the walk in the woods but I think I got more out of the first part of the day where we were doing hands-on work picking fossils since I felt a sense of accomplishment in finding something in the sand, whereas I was soaking in information and just observing with the second trip.

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