Odiorne

Thursday was my annual trip to Odiorne Point State Park. Plymouth Regional High School's science department has been making this field trip for many years (must be at least 20 years). I have gone with them for several years and even though I retired 2 years ago, I still get invited to help with the day. (There are actually two of us who have retired and return just for this trip.)

I described last year's trip here -- "I Must Go Down to the Seas Again."  This year we had about 30 students between the Environmental Sciences and Oceanography classes. It was a perfect size group -- all worked hard and had a great time.

What I most enjoy seeing is the students' experience of "discovery" -- accompanied by the constant call of "Mrs. Badger, come over here and get a picture of this."  (And, yes, they return everything they find back to its original position.)

Here are some selected images of what we found this year ---

The crabs were plentiful, including a female with eggs ---

We placed this crab back down on the floating seaweed and within a few seconds he was back underwater ---

And, of course, there is seaweed ---

And from this view of our state's Atlantic coastline, it was only a two hour school bus ride north to our beautiful lakes and mountains of New Hampshire.

I'm already looking forward to next year's trip.