Hi folks,

My teenage daughter wants to study marine biology. She's getting A and A* in the sciences in high-school so fully expect her to forge ahead with it.

We're going abroad on holiday in Dec and I've managed to get her a spot in a research company doing crustacean research for a couple of days which entails snorkeling and counting what she sees. She's utterly over the moon about it.

My question - here in the UK we have the concept of "work experience" where you, as a student, spend a few days shadowing someone in a career you're interested in. Does anyone know how I can get her a spot in either London aquarium or similar? We've emailed multiple times but not heard anything back. I guess they're inundated.

Anyone have any good ideas or advice?

Thanks.

I've wanted to study Marnie Biology for the longest time, and I've had to battle a lot of health issues and take my time with studying to get to a place where I can think about studying it as a degree. When looking at universities to apply to, my main criteria have been whether the university would suit my needs health wise, as well as just whether or not I liked the place. Some universities I've looked at seem better set up and more well known across the field, but actually going to study there with my circumstances would be incredibly tough, or require me to take more time to get more qualifications to meet entry requirements cause they aren't willing to take reduced qualifications from health issues into account. In all my looking into universities, Aberystwyth seems completely perfect for me, and the most accommodating, but I haven't really been paying attention to how well connected I'll get by studying there, how many opportunities there'll be there or how likely I'll be to get a job after. Would any of you guys recommend/not recommend studying there?

I’m a senior in high school and I’ve been planning to study marine biology for a long time, I just got accepted into Humboldt State which was my number 1, but I am nervous and wondering if it would instead be better to go for a general biology degree to have a wider spread of knowledge. Especially with how scary the job market and inflation has been lately. Any advice greatly appreciated.

Hi all,

Harvested some mussels from Pacific Ocean today in Northern California, in an area with no active shellfish advisories. Found some orangish/red liquid in the bucket among the mussels. Drained it out (with mussels still in the bucket), and the liquid came back, suggesting one or more mussels may be actively secreting it. Does anyone know what this may be and if it poses a safety risk? If I could identify which mussel(s) it was, would it be safe to eat the other mussels that were in the same bucket?

Please let me know, thank you!

Hello, I would like to ask the community for some specific advice on using fluorescence to measure Chlorophyll in water samples. We are trying to develop a method to periodicaly measure It autonomously, but without a pre-bought Fluorometer. This means I have to configure LEDs to shine at the correct wavelength and read apropriate one as well. At the moment my biggest struggle is figuring out The time interval between shining and Reading, If someone is familiar with said technology, I would love some advice.

Hi I'm 22 and currently studying marine biology in England and I'm wondering what kind of jobs and areas I could actually aim for with this degree? it's been a dream of mine since I was knee high and I'm liking my course so far.

I've been passively scrolling around here and it feels like nothing, but negatives and fear. Is there any hope or is it just useless dreaming?

Hi, im not personally going into marine biology, but it has been the career choice for my boyfriend. He has wanted to get into this since childhood, that is until recently, when he saw a reel taking ab how much coding there is.

He's really into this line of work, and i think it fits him, but he's been really discouraged since finding that out. Could someone inform me about this? I dont want him to be feeling lost about his future because of a dumb reel.

It feels wrong to encourage someone to take out loans to pursue a degree that near absolutely requires graduate school to have any chance of getting a job. Grad school is a rough experience not meant for everyone and to encourage a degree that requires it feels wrong.

Additional many of the obtainable jobs, currently pay close to minimum wage after investing 4+ years and loads on money.

That being said some people are truly passionate and good for them, but to encourage undecided students to pursue it feels cruel.

I should also mention I have my PhD in marine biology, but had to leave the field due to job scarcity. I was very close to pursing a postdoc but couldn't justify moving across country making my wife quit her job for a salary of 50-60k (which is less than a highschool teacher salary in nj) that was only guaranteed for 2 years.

Also the reason I'm posting this is because it's a sad truth/reality that I think needs to be discussed more.

Lastly just want to clarify, i love science. I think it's important.I think it's great, but I think we also need to be realistic when addressing the problems. Requiring masters or phd level education for enetry level jobs, is not sustainable, especially considering advanced degrees and this fields tend to be longer due to requirement of field work. I enjoyed my ph d a lot and I really love the work I did, however, I know a lot of people that were very miserable for a very long time. I'm also aware of several students that dropped out because graduate school isn't for them. This is my critique. Graduate school isn't for everyone, and it shouldn't be required. A bachelor should be enough to get a job.

Also I very much enjoyed my graduate studies. I just don't think it should be a requirement for everyone who enters the field.

Tldr: not saying marine science isn't important, but requiring advanced degrees yo get a 40k job is unsustainable.

Edit1: people seem to be missing my point. Im not complaining about my personal career path im pretty content in biologics work. I'm saying it's wrong that a bachelor's degree in this field does nothing to get you a job most of the time. Requiring grad school to get a bad paying job is cruel, in my opinion.

Also i think people contest this point with too much personal anecdote.

https://preview.redd.it/snk18l319g3e1.jpg?width=1108&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a5fc89058de537e89f1030aaa02b586263648c7

Found while hauling on a tuna longliner. The size is about 5 by 5 inches. Can someone help identify which animal it is or suggest a category where I might find it?

Hi taking my second biology course this year and I asked my teacher why Osculum/Oscula and Ostium/Ostia have different endings in their name. Since Os- is latin for mouth what do the end parts mean? Or do they not mean anything and were just added to make sure people don't confuse the small ostia for the large osculas on sponges? I thought Osculum maybe just referred to a single mouth until I saw that most common sponges have several oscula and ostia.

Couldn't get an answer from my teacher since it isn't a marine biology or latin/language course and they don't have experience with either.
Apologies if this is an odd question.

Hello, I am a first year Marine Science PhD student with a focus on cellular and molecular mechanisms of disease resistance in the eastern oyster. I am currently putting together a rough outline for an after-school program and would appreciate any suggestions for potential activity ideas. The students are a mix of sophomores and juniors in high school. The program is 2 hours a day, 1 day a week, for 4 weeks. Each student would have selected the marine biology option for this program and are thus specifically interested in this field. I would be doing this program in a standard university undergrad bio lab and thus have access to the stuff they have along with the stuff I can easily bring over from my lab. The activities should be mostly hands on with the potential for small lecture components.

A couple ideas I am bouncing around are a project looking at the affect of ocean acidification on oyster or other bivalve shells (two containers with the shells, one has current ocean pH and the other has projected pH in 2100), another looking at the role of oysters in filtration (this would be a mix of putting algae in a tank of oysters and observing how the water clears up over the course of a couple hours along with a dissection of oysters and discussion of important organs such as the gills) but this would end up only taking one day, another is observing oyster hemolymph under a microscope with very small beads that the hemocytes will phagocytize along with looking at prepared slides of bivalve tissue showing signs of various diseases, and another idea more broadly is to collect water samples, extract the DNA, and do eDNA sequencing analysis and connect that to biogeochemical functions. Obviously all of these ideas are in a rough state so any feedback would also be appreciated.

My general concern is finding activities that are hands on/engaging, ideally at least somewhat connect to my area of focus if possible, realistic to do under the time span, and appeal to a broad range of students interested in marine biology/marine science (more specifically I am concerned that my oyster histology/organismal biology stuff might be less appealing to these students than a more ecology focused set of activities).

I'm not a marine biologist or anything i just like watching documentaries about deep sea life and I've always wondered why the deep sea floor is all muddy and soft looking surely with all that water pressing down on it the sea floor should be denser right?

I’m in my senior year of Highschool and this is one of the three last assignments for my career class.. the assignment is asking for how the requirements to get a job in marine biology has changed in the last 15 years, and it asks the same for how technology has changed too.. I’m having trouble finding credible sources for this assignment and I’m honestly thinking Reddit might be my last hope.. On break so cannot text my teacher for any help 😓 any help would be great!

I'm trying to create a hypothetical land sponge I just need to know how much food a natural sea sponge needs to live