Friday, December 1, 2017

Don't Get Bent Reading This

The weather this morning was almost as wet as our topic for the day - scuba diving! But, before we learned all about the “bends” and how to read dive tables we finished watching or last video of Joy and her dissection of the Great White Shark. Then Mrs. Becker showed us the series planet earth and frozen planet. We saw the famous shark Great White jump out of the water in super slow motion! We then continued onto watch frozen planet where we saw a group of killer whales team up to kill seals by making giant waves to flip the seals into the water, so they could eat. That was all for the first block of the day!

watch out!
The second block of the day started with a discussion about Red Lobster’s influence on the Nicaraguan lobster industry, and the consequences that affect both humans and the lobsters. We began our conversation by talking about decompression sickness (the “bends”), which is a negative physical response to surfacing too quickly while scuba diving. We also talked about nitrogen narcosis, which is physical intoxication caused by dissolved nitrous oxide in the blood. Both of these ailments only occur when one is diving inappropriately or doesn’t understand how to dive correctly. This is what happens to the divers in Nicaragua because they don’t have the proper equipment to dive to deep depths, and that they dive too frequently. Thus resulting in the “bends”, nitrogen narcosis, or both. We concluded our talk by discussing the treatment for the bends which is going into a hyperbaric chamber for days or weeks depending on the severity of one’s case.

dive safely or face the consequences!

After lunch we continued our exploration of scuba diving by reviewing the official planner for divers, created by the United States Navy, to ensure a safe and healthy dive. This planner takes into account the depth the diver goes and the duration one stays in the water. It also gives you suggestions on how long you should spend on each dive based on how far you go and how many dives you have had that day. We all spent a long time getting the hang of how to work this planner, but by the end of the block we were all great at planning dives.

If you want to dive safely you must know how to use this table
Afterwards, Ms. Becker introduced us to a selection of 52 different birds and fish that we might encounter while int he Bahamas. Once we finished learning about all our Bahamian animal friends we were informed that we would take a game after our next break where the student who could identify the most animals form the 52 would win a prize!

52 new animals is a lot to learn

Coming into our fourth and final block of the day we were all excited to see who would win the small prize and get the best score on the animal identification quiz. Once we began and Mrs. Becker started to show the pictures of all the different animals the struggle began. It was difficult remembering all the different names for the small fish that would quick flash on the board with their vibrant colors. After everyone finished and the final tallies were taken on the the quiz we had a winner by a fairly large margin. Isaiah got 51 out of the 52 animals right!! WOW!! He won a small trophy and bragging rights for the rest of the intensive. We are coming down to our last couple of days. With the test tomorrow everyone will be studying their diving charts and the lives of sharks and rays. As we head into the weekend I know everyone is looking forward to packing and waking up bright and early Monday morning to make our way down to the Bahamas!!

In Complete Excitement,
Quinn and Paddy

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