The WFSU Ecology Blog
  • Home
    • About
    • EcoAdventures
      • Kayak and Canoe Adventures
      • Hiking
      • Wildlife Watching
    • WFSU Public Media Home
  • Documentaries
    • EcoCitizen Show | Seasons in South Tallahassee
    • Red Wolf Family Celebrates First Year at the Tallahassee Museum
    • Roaming the Red Hills
    • Oyster Doctors
    • Testing the Ecology of Fear
    • EcoShakespeare
    • Stories from the Apalachicola
    • Classic WFSU Ecology Documentaries
  • Habitats
    • Estuaries
      • Oyster Reef
        • The Effects of Predators and Fear on Oyster Reefs
        • Apalachicola Oyster Research
        • Animal Species in a North Florida Intertidal Oyster Reef
        • Oyster Reef Ecology | On the Reef
      • Salt Marsh
        • In the Grass- Salt Marsh Biodiversity Study
        • Plants and Animals of a North Florida Salt Marsh
        • Salt Marsh Ecology | In the Grass
      • Seagrass Bed
        • Predatory Snails, and Prey, of the Bay Mouth Bar Seagrass Beds
      • In the Grass, On the Reef Glossary
    • Waterways Big and Small
      • Apalachicola Basin
        • Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines | Virtual Field Trip
        • The Age of Nature Screening & Discussion | The Future of the Apalachicola
        • Apalachicola RiverTrek | Kayaking, Camping, & Hiking the River Basin
        • Apalachicola River and Bay
    • Longleaf Pine & Fire Ecology
  • Backyard Habitat
    • Backyard Blog
      • The Backyard Bug Blog 2018
      • Backyard Blog January 2019
      • Backyard Blog February 2019
      • Backyard Blog March 2019
      • Backyard Blog May 2019
      • Backyard Blog April 2019
      • Backyard Blog June 2019
      • Backyard Blog July 2019
      • Backyard Blog August 2019
      • Backyard Blog September 2019
      • Backyard Blog October through December 2019
      • Backyard Blog January 2020
      • Backyard Blog February and March 2020
      • Backyard Blog April 2020
      • Backyard Blog May 2020
      • Backyard Blog June 2020
      • July and August 2020 Backyard Blog
      • Backyard Blog September/ October 2020
      • Backyard Blog November/ December 2020
      • Backyard Ecology Blog | 2021
    • Backyard Flora and Fauna
      • Bees of North Florida and South Georgia
      • Woody Vines of North Florida
    • Florida Friendly Seasonal Planting Guide
    • Pollinator and Gardening Posts
    • Gardening Web Resources
Kayak and Canoe Adventures
Chipola River Paddling Trail | The Ovens and...
Kayaking Bald Point | Adventure on a Living...
Wacissa Springs Adventure | Kayaking a Wild Florida...
A Geologist’s View of the Apalachicola River |...
Upper Chipola River Kayak Adventure | Ghosts &...
Tate’s Hell & the Apalachicola River Delta |...
Kayak Scouting Mission on the Ochlockonee Water Trail
Merritt’s Mill Pond | Kayaking and Spring Caves
Kayaking the Apalachicola River with my Four-Year-Old Son
Canoeing the Aucilla: A Red Hills River Steeped...

The WFSU Ecology Blog

  • Home
    • About
    • EcoAdventures
      • Kayak and Canoe Adventures
      • Hiking
      • Wildlife Watching
    • WFSU Public Media Home
  • Documentaries
    • EcoCitizen Show | Seasons in South Tallahassee
    • Red Wolf Family Celebrates First Year at the Tallahassee Museum
    • Roaming the Red Hills
    • Oyster Doctors
    • Testing the Ecology of Fear
    • EcoShakespeare
    • Stories from the Apalachicola
    • Classic WFSU Ecology Documentaries
  • Habitats
    • Estuaries
      • Oyster Reef
        • The Effects of Predators and Fear on Oyster Reefs
        • Apalachicola Oyster Research
        • Animal Species in a North Florida Intertidal Oyster Reef
        • Oyster Reef Ecology | On the Reef
      • Salt Marsh
        • In the Grass- Salt Marsh Biodiversity Study
        • Plants and Animals of a North Florida Salt Marsh
        • Salt Marsh Ecology | In the Grass
      • Seagrass Bed
        • Predatory Snails, and Prey, of the Bay Mouth Bar Seagrass Beds
      • In the Grass, On the Reef Glossary
    • Waterways Big and Small
      • Apalachicola Basin
        • Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines | Virtual Field Trip
        • The Age of Nature Screening & Discussion | The Future of the Apalachicola
        • Apalachicola RiverTrek | Kayaking, Camping, & Hiking the River Basin
        • Apalachicola River and Bay
    • Longleaf Pine & Fire Ecology
  • Backyard Habitat
    • Backyard Blog
      • The Backyard Bug Blog 2018
      • Backyard Blog January 2019
      • Backyard Blog February 2019
      • Backyard Blog March 2019
      • Backyard Blog May 2019
      • Backyard Blog April 2019
      • Backyard Blog June 2019
      • Backyard Blog July 2019
      • Backyard Blog August 2019
      • Backyard Blog September 2019
      • Backyard Blog October through December 2019
      • Backyard Blog January 2020
      • Backyard Blog February and March 2020
      • Backyard Blog April 2020
      • Backyard Blog May 2020
      • Backyard Blog June 2020
      • July and August 2020 Backyard Blog
      • Backyard Blog September/ October 2020
      • Backyard Blog November/ December 2020
      • Backyard Ecology Blog | 2021
    • Backyard Flora and Fauna
      • Bees of North Florida and South Georgia
      • Woody Vines of North Florida
    • Florida Friendly Seasonal Planting Guide
    • Pollinator and Gardening Posts
    • Gardening Web Resources
EcoAdventures

Whatever Floats (We Hope) Your Boat

by Rob Diaz de Villegas October 25, 2012
by Rob Diaz de Villegas October 25, 2012 2 comments
Rob Diaz de Villegas WFSU-TV

 

Over 60 milk jugs from a Tallahassee Starbucks. Good use of recycled materials, but will it float?

Today we take a little break from the Apalachicola River and Bay crises and from our ecological explorations into the intertidal for something fun: The FSU Coastal & Marine Lab’s 1st Annual Regatta.  People from the community, many wearing outlandish costumes, brought in seven different homemade boats made from recycled materials.  I was mentally prepared to film sinking ships (and half of them tested their boats ahead of time) and rescues from the two rescue boats stationed at either end of the course.  It was as entertaining a shoot as I’ve been on recently, and it could have been a longer segment if I’d included the explanations of each boat name, which were typically pretty clever.

In the interview with Dr. Felicia Coleman, she mentions that she wanted to bring attention to recycling.  It’s not as hot button an issue as climate change, the BP spill, or water management in the ACF basin, but a few stats gathered by In the Grass, On the Reef Associate Producer Rebecca Wilkerson illustrate that if we as a society recycled more of our plastic, we would be doing our oceans a favor.

The “Splinter,” a boat made from a kiddie pool and various plastic recyclables, wrapped in plastic and shaped like a turtle. Who can identify which turtle each girl is supposed to be from their painted on masks?

Over 300 million tons of plastic are produced every year.  Sources gathered by Rebecca indicate that only 5-10% of it is recycled.  The rest ends up in landfills and in the ocean.  There is no definitive number on how much plastic is floating in the ocean.  The State of the Planet blog from Earth Institute at Columbia University puts the number in the hundreds of million of tons, where a more ambitious attempt at calculating it from 5GYRES puts it at 315 billion tons.  This page on the Marine Research Institute’s Algalita web site discusses how slowly plastic breaks down, possibly staying in ecosystems for centuries.  Plastic floating near the surface confuses birds and gets eaten by them.  Properly disposing of plastic would is the best way to prevent this burden on our oceans.

Well, there I went getting serious when I said we were taking a break from the serious.  I hope you enjoy the video.  In the next few weeks we’ll delve back into the intertidal, looking more closely at some of the ecosystem services provided by salt marshes and oyster reefs.  And we’ll be posting two video segments from RiverTrek 2012, so stay tuned!

Facebook Comments
boat racingFlorida State Universityrecycling
2 comments
0
FacebookTwitterGoogle +Pinterest
Rob Diaz de Villegas

Rob Diaz de Villegas is a senior producer for WFSU-TV, covering outdoors and ecology. After years of producing the music program OutLoud, Rob found himself in a salt marsh with a camera, and found a new professional calling as well. That project, the National Science Foundation funded "In the Grass, On the Reef," spawned the award winning WFSU Ecology Blog. Now in its tenth year, the Ecology Blog recently wrapped its most ambitious endeavor, the EcoCitizen Project. Rob is married with two young sons, who make a pretty fantastic adventure squad.

previous post
The River, the Bay, and the Army Corps of Engineers
next post
Kayaking the Apalachicola on RiverTrek 2012 | Days 1 & 2

Related Posts

Did Shakespeare write his plays? The Eco-Answer

December 17, 2014

Raising a Kid with Nature Takes Creativity, Persistence

February 25, 2015

Father & Son Apalachicola River Kayak Adventure

November 10, 2014

Merritt’s Mill Pond | Kayaking and Spring Caves

December 17, 2015

New Video: The Florida Trail at Aucilla Sinks

April 17, 2012

RiverTrek Day 4: From the Crew

October 13, 2012

RiverTrek Day 4: Sand Mountain

October 13, 2012

Volunteers’ Labor of Love: The Wolf Creek Trout...

March 5, 2015

Rivertrek Day 5: Owl Creek to Apalachicola

October 15, 2012

Video: Bradwell Bay Wilderness Hike- Night and Day

June 5, 2014

2 comments

Abelina October 26, 2012 - 9:58 pm

Where’s the footage from the crew of the Led Zeppelin (John Squall Jones)!? From what I hear they were the most enthusiastic, energetic, and creative crew in the race! I would have loved to see the faces behind the boat of palates and barrels!

Yours,
Devoted Squaller

Rob October 26, 2012 - 11:03 pm

Chris Koenig acted as the spokesperson for the Lead Zeppelin, so he’s the only one we talked to. Like I said in my post, had I more than 6 minutes I could have included a lot more of the entertaining antics/ interviews/ race footage. It was tough to keep it out!

Comments are closed.

Search

Subscribe

Subscribe to receive more outdoor adventures, and an in depth look at our local forests and waterways by Email.

If you do not receive a verification e-mail, check your spam folder.

Category

2021 Backyard Blog update (We found a yellowjacket queen)

Eastern yellowjacket (Vespula maculifrons), possibly a queen

Eastern yellowjacket (Vespula maculifrons), possibly a queen

Twitter

Tweets by wfsuIGOR

iNaturalist

iNaturalist became a part of the WFSU Ecology Blog during the EcoCitizen Project in 2019.  Since then, we’ve used it to help identify the many plants and animals we see on our shoots.  And on the Backyard Blog, we show how it can be used to identify weeds and garden insects, to help figure out what’s beneficial or a possible pest.  Below is the iNaturalist profile belonging to WFSU Ecology producer Rob Diaz de Villegas.

iNaturalist.org

Thumb
View robdv’s observations »

Most Recent

  • The Case for Weeds, Our Unsung Florida Native Plants
  • Shorebirds in the Misty Morning | Surveying the St. Marks Refuge
  • New Red Wolf Breeding Pair at the Tallahassee Museum
  • Building Climate Resiliency in the Apalachicola Watershed
  • Biodiversity in the Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines

Archives

October 2012
M T W T F S S
« Sep   Nov »
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  

WFSU Ecology YouTube

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Flickr
  • Youtube

@2017 - PenciDesign. All Right Reserved. Designed and Developed by PenciDesign

test title

this is the info in my test popup.