Marine Biology Memories

Marine Biology Memories

I recall many trips to PlumBeach in all kinds of weather. We did studies on Killifish and
horseshoe crabs among other things. We also took a trip to Montauk Point (with an
intervening stop too.) For my final project, lab partner Charles Ubell & I compared the blood
of crabs with our own. I almost went blind counting red and green blood cells. For our last
day we had lobster boiled in beer (secret ingredient.) How come my food memory is the
strongest of all?

Keith Dom Powell

The lobster boil was traumatic for me! We spent time playing and making friends with the lobster and then we boiled them for lunch! I couldn't eat lobster for months after that!
Andrea (andi) Levy '77

I refused to eat lobster that day. Nor have I eaten it since.

Johnny

I don't remember going to Montauk Point, but I do remember many trips out to PlumBeach -- some in the water with nets, and some just along the shore. And I remember trying to write up a number of labs that didn't actually turn out quite the way they were supposed to -- probably due to my own errors!

Debby Bowinsky '74

I remember standing in the cold surf in waders holding a yardstick measuring the peaks and troughs of waves. Then graphing them later.

I remember reading Buchsbaum's "Animals without backbones" (I think that was the title) cover to cover. I especially liked the lophopores, ctenophores and sponges.

I think quite a few of us who went into science after high school can trace our first "real" science exposure to Marine Biology (that and Mr. Haber's microbiology lab, which was a true gem--does anyone else remember that?)

Arthur Lander

We had a great Marine
Biology program. We had equipment that I had no idea how advanced
and extraordinary it was until after I left Dewey. Where did it
come from? I remember Harold Silverstein suing some developer at
EPA hearings using something like the Wetlands Act. I don't
remember the exact number of housing units but the developer wanted
to put up, let's say, 120 housing units by Fresh(Spring?) Creek.
There were EPA hearings and Silverstein was fighting him down to
60. The developer made him an "offer" to hire him personally with a
$10,000 "consultation fee" that he should let him put up 100 units.
Silverstein declined the bribe but said he will let him put up 85 if
he makes a $25,000 donation to the marine biology program. It is
hard to say let's run a formal institution like this, but we had a
great school. Going to the EPA hearings was a major educational
experience itself. Watching Silverstein perjure himself in the
hearings was an education too. I would not include that last line
in an inspirational collection, but he was a powerful, dynamic, "out
of the box" teacher who was doing whatever it took for his
students. God Bless him and everyone like him, there aren't enough
to go around.

Today's comments:
I had no appreciation how unusual it was to have something like a
phase contrast microscope in a NY public HS. One time Mr.
Silverstein mentioned that there was a NY microscopy society that
meets once or twice a month in the NY Museum of Natural History. He
described it as an interesting mix. You have little old ladies with
nothing better to do with their time than look at little things and
you have people who recently had articles published in Scientific
American. First off, the NY Museum of Natural History was a home
away from home for me for years. The experience of showing up there
an hour after closing time and being let in by the security guard,
walking through the empty halls until I got to one of those
mysterious places that the general public was not admitted to. This
alone was worth the train ride. The classes were interesting if you
like looking at little stuff. Then afterwards, from less that
twenty people in the class about a half dozen of us went to some very
fancy coffee shop and shmoozed about how great it is looking at
little stuff. I was both "the kid" and the new kid on the block and
they asked me how I heard of the group and what JDHS was like. When
I mentioned how we have a 1000X(it might have been more) phase
contrast microscope in my school that has a side port for a video
hook up and the teachers set up a video camera next to it. I
described watching live paramecium squiggle around, larger than
the video screen. I saw the oohs and aahs coming out of this crowd
and realized that this is not a standard part of every 17 year old
kid's school experience.
In ninth grade I started Marine Bio. As anyone who has read my
posts can see, I enjoyed science and it kept my interest. There was
just something about sponge physiology that just got my eyelids
closing. So Lou Segal was kind enough to give me a no grade and
sent me off to the world of general bio. I was told I snored
sometimes. Oh well, all my loss. A general observation about the
class dynamic. It was bonding. In this class as contrasted to any
other that we where to gether for years, for example the enriched
math crowd. I am not an artsy person, but I get a feeling from this
Alumni Group that the musicial crowd might have had a similiar
bonding. I feel that this was part due to Silverstein & Segal's
personalities and in part to the constant FIELD TRIPS TO THE
BEACH!!! What a way to attend HS!
So I got bounced from Marine Bio my first year and I took Advanced
Marine Bio my fifth year. One morning while I was in Adv Mar Bio I
woke up as I was having a very vivid dream. I dreamed that I was
viewing the Advanced Marine Bio class and there was a major
excitement. There was the "NEW FISH." It was about five and a
half feet tall(I am five and a half feet tall) and sitting on a lab
bench(in my spot) with everyone sitting around looking at it. It
was singing. It sang, "oh I love you," to which the rest of the
class responded singing and swaying, "ooh aah ooh" "yes I really love
you," "ooh aah ooh." The first thoughts that had on waking up from
a dream like this, you can use your own imagination. Then my radio
which was with a time clock said, "and that was Joe Cocker and the
Spaniels from '63(?) singing oh I love you."
While not related to Marine Bio, my first semester in Stony Brook a
friend of mine was struggling with something from third year organic
chemistry. I explained it to him and he looked at me with this
expression of "Where do you know that from?" I looked at him and
said, "I went to John Dewey, I got a real education." That was not
the only time I found myself saying that.
As I write this I am feeling a little remorseful that I didn't spend
six years there. Some other time I will write how close I came to
doing that.

Nachum