Biology Camp 2022

On April 19th, the year 12 and 13 biologist’s departed on a magnificent adventure. A beautiful three-hour drive took us to Gansbaai where our experiment commenced.

On the first day, we settled in and met all our lovely instructors and interns volunteering to help us in this experiment. We were taken to the estuary where we would conduct and test all our previously made hypotheses on the abundance of mudprawns in this estuary. This entailed several areas of work which were split into teams. Team one pumped prawns, team 2 took records of things like temperature, location coordinates, and salinity using a specialized measuring instrument, and team 3 took measurements of the mudprawns. Each group switched roles once finished so that each person experienced doing each task.

After a long day of fieldwork, we headed back to our lodging area where the people at Marine Conservation prepared us a lovely braai, and we shared one another’s favourite things about the day while indulging in the lovely food. At night most of us stayed near the fireplace and played some Uno, which was super competitive.

The next morning we were lucky enough to go on a boat trip! The weather was perfect, the sun gleamed through the clear skies, making it a perfect day to set sail. We had a safety briefing before heading onto the boat to experience seeing the marine big 5. While we weren’t able to see all five, we saw whales, African penguins, and seals.

We, later on, went back to the estuary to conduct our final areas of research. This day was the most abundant of prawns, so we went out with a bang. We then headed back to the house.

After dinner, we played a really fun ’30 seconds’ inspired game but with words associated with the camp, suggested to us by Dr Rat.  It was also Dr Rat’s birthday so we celebrated with her, and we each gifted her a little chocolate.

On the final morning, we visited the African Penguin Sanctuary where they explained to us their role in penguin conservation and what they do on a daily basis to help the penguins in the sanctuary that need help. We then watched a presentation made by our leading instructor, where he explained his role as a Marine Biologist.

We then later had to sadly say goodbye to Gansbaai and head home. The trip was lovely and much enjoyed by everyone involved.