Piner High School STEM Certificate

Level I Response

Remay Berhane

Presentation Title: Sharks and Their Amazing Adaptations Webinar

Presenter: Dr. Mikki

Date: May 14th, 2020

Summary:

Dr. Mikki’s fear of sharks after watching the movie Jaws lead to her learning more about

sharks to overcome that fear. The more she learned about them, the more she wanted

to share their story with as many people as she could. Since then she has spent her life

trying to connect people through sharks and have them understand what sharks are

like.

As she got older she moved to Florida and pursued her dream to become a scuba

instructor. This job opened up new opportunities and doors for her to pursue a career as

a researcher. She got a PhD studying sharks down in Florida. She was asking

questions about “how they find each other underwater, how sharks move, where do they

go, why hammerhead sharks have the strange head shape that they do, how well do

they see, and how well do they use their sensory system?”
Prehistoric sharks were on Earth way before the time of the dinosaurs. It is assumed

that dinosaurs went extinct because of a giant meteor impact which changed living

conditions so greatly, they could not survive. At that time, sharks were swimming in the

ocean, so “the story of sharks is the story of survival.” They have lived through mass

extinction events and are extraordinary survivors.

Sharks are closely related to creatures called skates and rays. They are all collectively

called elasmobranchs. They are all under the same category because of one

characteristic they share: skeletons made of cartilage, which is the stuff in your ears.

Reflection:

Dr. Mikki’s presentation was very interesting. I learned that she doesn’t just scuba dive

for her job, and that she wants to actually break the stigma about sharks. It drew me in

and taught me things I never knew but seemed obvious.

One thing was that sharks existed before dinosaurs and survived a meteor which had a

great, giant, impact. I also didn’t know that there were creatures related to sharks called

skates and rays. I learned that there are harmless sharks such as the Whale Shark.

This shark is harmless because it goes around eating almost microscopic animals in the

water called zooplankton and phytoplankton.

I also discovered that sharks can be measured by lasers. This method doesn’t hurt the

shark nor does it touch the sharks. How this works is that there are two laser devices

set 50 centimeters apart, with a camera placed in the middle. When the shark that they

are measuring swims by, they are able to project those laser dots onto it. Later they go

back to look at the image and figure out how long the shark actually is.

Dr. Mikki is an important role in the shark researching community, doctor community,

scientist community, and researcher community.

STEAMify Your Thoughts: