STEPHANIE BENSEMAN: What we're doing with
this trawls, and again trawl is just dragging
a giant net behind the boat is we're trying
to sample from the mid-water columns so the
Issac Skidman water trawl basically drops
the net down to almost 900 meters at times.
And we can sample from these organisms that
live very very very deep in that you will
never see otherwise.
And then we are allowed to pull them up, and
we put them into these tanks where we can
actually observe them still alive in their
natural environment.
And that's one thing that CSUN does excel
at. Is we do have a lot of hands on activities
for the students that they will not get in
another university.
(music plays)
MARK STEELE: One huge advantage of CSUN
is the university really supports hands-on learning.
Different professors teach the
different field components of their courses
in different ways.
One place I really enjoy taking them is Carpinteria
Salt Marsh.
It's nice to have something relatively local,
a bit over an hour drive.
And to get a group of undergraduates in the
mud essentially, and in the water, and seeing
all these cool live organisms.
Fishes, mollucks, all sort of neat stuff.
The most important part is just seeing it
and all these activities have some scientific
component to it. We're studying something
trying to figure out different techniques
to sample.
So the Yellow Fin is our research boat. And
when I say our, it's own by a consortium of
Cal State universities.
We as, part of the consortium, that own the
Yellow Fin get to use it at very reduced rates
for our teaching and research.
STACEY VIRTUE-HILBORN: It's something I had
never done as an undergrad before at my other
university that I was at so it was cool to
like one of the first classes that I took
here as a grad student, I was out on the water
doing something I had never done before.
HALI STAFFORD: My favorite part was when they
would pull stuff up in the net and they would
dump it into the fin, and you get to touch
it with your hand, you get to pick them up,
you get to feel the fish. It's just, I had so much fun.
MICHAEL FRANKLIN: The favorite part about
these trips with my students is that they
get to see things that they haven't seen before.
Not every ocean graphic institute has this
sort of experience for undergrads or upper-division
students or even their graduate students.
STACEY VIRTUE-HILBORN: They back you up in
terms of what you want to teach and how you
want to teach it, but then also your own education.
