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Classroom at Sea

This spring, first-year MIT/WHOI Joint Program students enrolled in an introductory course in biological oceanography had the opportunity to participate in a field exercise on R/V Tioga. During the cruise, students gained first-hand experience in sampling and identifying organisms that live in the ocean or beneath the seafloor. Here, first-year students (left to right) Esther Shyu, Emily Brownlee, Kathleen Pitz examine the remains of a tube from a tube-building worm brought up by a grab sampler moments before. The worms’ burrows help bring aerated water into bottom sediments and provide microhabitats for other small invertebrates and microbes.(Photo by Maya Yamato, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)