Seattle Shenanigans

In week 5 of the internship we spent two days in Seattle visiting collaborators, touring labs, walking through the Seattle Aquarium, and soaking up the city. Here are some of the highlights!

Seattle Aquarium

The interns had a blast checking out all the sea creatures and asking questions about their behaviors and habitats!

UW Applied Physics Lab

The interns got to reunite with Pete and Tatiana for a tour around the world-famous seaglider lab where they talked to some of the engineers and saw a sneak peek of the insides of the instrument. Then they walked over to one of their vessels that is designed for launching autonomous boats and other instruments to see what it looks like from the inside.

In the evening, the interns unanimously voted to get dinner at Din Tai Fung where they enjoyed delicious dumplings, followed by Molly Moon’s ice cream and free live music. Such a fun day!

NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center

At AFSC, the interns toured three labs. First up was the diet lab run by REEM, where KC and Andrea showed them the process of analyzing stomach contents, introduced them to their reference specimens, and talked about how that data gets used for management. In the shared marine mammal lab, Burlyn showed them the scat freezer, the necropsy space, and their enormous reference library of hard fish parts and squid beaks. In the growth and aging lab, Kali explained how fish otoliths are sliced and read to determine the age of the fish, and talked about all the other types of sampling they can do to learn more about the fish’s life.

Burke Museum

At the Burke museum, the interns enjoyed looking at the fossil collections and searching for Makah artifacts in the displays.

And with that, two jam-packed days came to a close!