Programs Blog

Thursday, March 6th, 2025 

Location: SEA Campus, Falmouth, MA  

Weather: 49°F, Foggy

Hello from Woods Hole! My name is Henry Penfold, and I’m a junior from Bowdoin College studying ecology and marine biology.  

As we near the end of our first full week here, we have settled into a busy schedule of classes and extracurricular activities. Each day has brought a rich variety of new experiences and lessons, and it is hard to believe that we will fly to Aotearoa New Zealand in just over three weeks!  

A key goal of our time on shore is to prepare for the oceanographic research we will conduct while underway from New Zealand to Tahiti aboard the Robert C. Seamans. We made good progress towards this goal yesterday, with an afternoon spent collecting plankton from the sea and peering at it through microscopes in the lab. Our first foray into the lab made for a particularly memorable afternoon and an enticing preview of our work in the coming months.  

After a morning class focused on developing effective science journalism skills, we piled into two vans and made the short drive into Woods Hole. We were joined by Remi, a delightfully playful and well-mannered poodle who accompanies Dr. Kayla Gardner, our assistant instructor for oceanography. After stopping for lunch at the edge of Eel Pond, we made our way to Dyer’s Dock, a pier where the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) often docks its research vessels. Dyer’s Dock is at the heart of Woods Hole, nestled between WHOI buildings and the Martha’s Vineyard ferry terminal. With a brisk breeze buffeting us from across the harbor, we took turns pulling a fine-meshed “neuston” net back and forth along the pier’s edge. This net, which we will use regularly aboard the Robert C. Seamans, skims plankton from the surface of the ocean and funnels them into a collection container.  

Back at the lab, we pipetted samples of plankton-rich seawater onto petri dishes and powered on our microscopes. Looking through our scopes, we were greeted by an incredible tangle of life: diatoms of all shapes, countless copepods swimming about, intricately structured barnacle nauplii, elegant medusas with chain-like tentacles, and more! An air of excitement spread through the lab as our plankton samples came into focus, with groups crowding around microscopes with particularly captivating specimens. It was humbling to see the amount of life that can be skimmed from the ocean’s surface in our backyard, and two hours spent drawing, photographing, and identifying plankton flew by. With the knowledge that we will soon employ these methods to study biodiversity on the open ocean, our days in the classroom are fueled by anticipation of what is to come.