This picture is taken when we visited the methane fires. This picture is extremely special as it shows the thousands of stars in the night sky. It is unique to me as it is the first time I saw this many stars in the sky before and I am mesmerised by it. The reason I am able to see this night sky is because the area we visited is far away from cities and any light pollution. The sky is also free of clouds and there is no moon, leading us to see much more stars. This will cause me to be excited about stargazing sessions tomorrow and days after.
Day 2
This is a picture of a large centrifuge, normally used in Biotechnology laboratories. It is used to separate the liquid portion of a tube (supernatant) from the solid portion (pellets). We used the centrifuge multiple times today to separate the solid coral from the seawater.
Today’s activities are fun and while I had learnt all of it from my previous biotechnology lessons, I am given more opportunities to practise the techniques I learnt and master them, making this a very rewarding lesson for me.
Day 3
This picture is a sick turtle. On its fins and eyes, there are some small tumours. Our guide told us that the turtle is suffering from a viral infection called fibroblastoma. The turtle was rescued from the wild and the vets are treating it. They use SDS-PAGE to identify the virus. PCR would then be carried out. I feel extremely sad as I can see that the turtle is suffering. This can be linked to us humans, in which we also suffer from many infections. This also highlights the importance of vaccinations, which prevents us from contracting various diseases.
Day 4
This is an image of a microscopic view of a mosquito. We captured this mosquito from the lab and out of curiosity, we dissected it. This is the view of the mosquito under the microscope This is the first time I saw a dissected view of a mosquito and it is very interesting. I found out that the microscopic view of an insect is very different from what we see normally.
This is linked to real life, where we should try and dig deeper to everything and understand the deeper meaning, for many times the deeper concepts are very different from what we saw at eye level.
Day 5
We visited the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium today. It is located very near our campus and we walked there in the afternoon. It is a extremely large museum and a popular tourist attraction in Taiwan. In the museum, there is a very wide range of Marine life. It ranges from large fishes and whales to coral exhibits and fossils. It is an eye opener for me as it shows me how there can be multiple adaptions for different species to survive in the same environment. This can be applied to real life, where there can be many different solutions to the same problem, and since everyone has different point of views, they will come to the solution with different steps.
Day 6 (last day!)
Today is the last day of the trip. In the morning, we went to the fish pond to control a ROV. An ROV is an underwater vehicle commonly used by marine scientists to explore the sea. It is commonly used to explore deep oceans where human divers are unable to reach. I learnt how to control the ROV.
This is a great highlight to end the learning journey. I can use the techniques I learnt today to explain multiple physics concepts like buoyancy and density. I learnt that physics concepts are applied to many places in the world, even in science disciplines that are normally unrelated to physics, like marine biology.
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