A day of biology in the Indiana Dunes

AP Biology is a college-level biology class that covers topics ranging from the small individual parts of an organism’s body to the large-scale phenomenons and cycles that take place in our world. In order to learn about these topics, students go on several field trips throughout the school year. This year, AP Biology classes took a trip to the Indiana Dunes National Park as part of their Ecology Unit. Dive in with me as we get a glimpse of the experience.

To begin our trip to the dunes, we all got onto the bus carrying our backpacks and biology gear like tools to measure wind & temperature, along with quadrant and transect placements for the dunes. Everyone was chilling in their seats, chatting, listening to music, or getting some z’s. After about 90 minutes of sitting on the bus and watching acres of greenery, we finally arrived in Indiana Dunes National Park at 8:45am, where it was slightly windy, but unbearably hot.

After getting off of the bus, we headed to the beach, where the winds were blowing slightly on our clothes. Before heading to the beach, our teacher told us that the data we were going to collect would be used in creating not only a biology report on the species diversity and ecological succession, but also for creating a large poster of all the species found at each point on the transects used.

Once we arrived on the beach, we got into our groups and were assigned what to do. Most groups identified and collected data on the number of species in the area, while the others collected data values on the non-living factors on the beach using the tools from the backpack carried by the teachers.

As we wrapped up the beach area, we climbed our way to the foredune, where we continued to collect data on the number of species and other environmental factors. Most of our classmates were identifying plants and animals. Since we were above the beach, it became very windy, so we used a wind meter to measure the wind speed. At this point, my feet were covered in sand.

As we approached the pine, we switched our roles and continued to identify and collect data on species and used tools to test environmental factors in our quadrantsor transects. While doing our work, we were warned about the poison ivy plants. Hopefully I didn’t touch any!

The walk got easier as we were closing in on the end of the trail, while continuing to pile photo after photo of the species that we identified in our quadrants or transects. In the oak area, the humidity was high, so there were groups that used a sling psychrometer to measure the humidity.

Me in front of the park’s guide board.

We headed back to our starting point for a well-deserved break, eating our lunch while we waited for the bus to back to drive us to the maple trees.

After our break, our bus dropped us off at the maple area where we finished identifying and collecting our data on different species and the environmental factors. Some of our groups used a temperature bar to measure the surface and subsurface temperature of the soil.

We finally boarded the bus and headed back to Conant after finishing our outdoor research.

Overall, the trip to the Indiana dunes made us feel like biologists doing fieldwork, exposing ourselves to the environment around us. Hope you enjoyed the experience!

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