Carrie Rinderle's zoology course introduced her to some of the world's most beautiful and fascinating marine animals. The more she learned about them, the more enthralled she became. The problem was that Rinderle had never been to the ocean! Michael Bautsch, on the other hand, just couldn't let go of sponges. After hearing Dr. Aparna Palmer talk about marine sponges, Bautsch was hooked. Sponges are animals? Sponges produce toxins to prevent being grazed upon by other animals? Most sponges are hard as rocks? Pretty soon he decided that he really had to see one. So, when Dr. Palmer announced that she was teaching an intensive, one-week course on marine invertebrates on the Oregon Coast in the summer of 2004, Carrie and Michael jumped at the chance to take it. In August, Rinderle and Bautsch joined eight other Mesa State students in traveling to Charleston, Oregon to experience the rugged coastline of the Pacific Northwest firsthand. Housed on the quaint campus of the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology (OIMB), Dr. Palmer and her students immersed themselves in surveying the abundance of life that exists on Oregon's south coast.

Day One began at six in the morning. Sunrise and the low tide revealed a vast array of colorful animals hidden among the rocky tidepools and seagrass beds at Cape Arago. Here, students discovered iridescent sea slugs, purplish seastars, and, of course, bright orange sea sponges. Afternoon took Dr. Palmer and her students to the quiet, wooded trails of the South Slough Estuarine Reserve at high tide. Sonya Ortega had spent the spring semester learning about estuaries in one of Dr. Palmer's courses; now she and the other students could see for themselves how an arm of the Coos Bay estuary is a delicate interaction between the ocean and the Coos River. After eating dinner together in their cottage at OIMB, everyone adjourned to the classroom; there, a short lecture by Dr. Palmer was followed by time allotted for studying the collected organisms. Later, students participated in "night-lighting." This unusual ritual involves submerging a lamp two feet below the surface of the water and then waiting to see which marine organisms would be attracted to the light. Minute sea worms at the peak of reproduction were immediately drawn to the underwater lamp. Once back at the lab, with the help of teaching assistant and Mesa State alumna Corri Heiss, the students were able look into a compound microscope and see the bright blue eggs held within the bodies of these delicate, translucent creatures.

Each day brought new discoveries! Day two took the students to a Charleston area mudflat at low tide and a rocky jetty in Bandon, Oregon at high tide. The morning of day three revealed a spectacular sandy beach habitat made all the more picturesque by the sight of an old lighthouse in the distance. Here, biology majors Gina Farrell and Lindsey Anders saw living sand dollars for the first time. That afternoon, the Mesa State group invaded the local docks to sample the life that abounds on the submerged edges of the structures; large, ivory sea anemones and bright purple feather-duster worms kept the students occupied. Day four took the students out on OIMB's research vessel, the Pluteus; a bottom trawl of the bay yielded such animals as dungeness crabs and sunflower stars. Students Kara Fossey and Jessie Rains were especially thrilled when the boat started heading for the large swells on the open ocean before returning to the docks. That night, lab time was spent finishing up the exhaustive task of identifying the collected specimens and preparing for the next day's oral presentations. By the end of the intensive, one-week course, Colleen Cooper-Vanosdell and Nichole Stephens, like the other students, had become experts at using dichotomous keys to identify collected specimens and had come to appreciate the diverse fauna that exist on the Oregon coast. Never had they learned so much in such little time!