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A Strange and Fascinating Water World

Note from Grace Simpkins, O-STEAM Fellowship program director: During our weeklong O-STEAM Powered Fellowship, we ask the students to keep a journal. Their journals represent their own way of capturing their experiences and interactions, documenting their growing science knowledge, and drawing connections in ways that makes sense to them. Through journaling, the fellows take time to reflect, remember highlight moments from the day and how they felt about them, track their personal journey, and ultimately develop a resource for  communicating and sharing their STEAM journey with others.

By Athvika Varma, 2025 O-STEAM Fellow

Athvika Varma was a 2025 O-STEAM Fellow.

I documented my O-STEAM experiences in a journal in a somewhat unique format. I jotted down things I had learned and accompanied them with many doodle-style watercolor paintings. Painting helps me learn and remember information more easily and quickly. My paintings were inspired by a combination of my love for the ocean, my love for art, and the incredible experiences I had during the O-STEAM fellowship.

Combining creativity with science is what made the fellowship unique and meaningful to me. It is my dream to study and protect the ocean a marine biologist, yet art has always been a part of my life and who I am. Through my painting, I hope to reach a wider audience, allowing more people to view these creatures as beautiful and in need of protection, and to view the environmental issues that threaten them as personal, devastating, and in need of action. I hope you all enjoy my art as much as I do.

The ocean is full of strange, fascinating, and sometimes surprising science. Its distinctive creatures and intricate ecosystems are some of the many things that make the marine world so incredible.
Octopuses are highly intelligent and curious -- and believe it or not, they are mollusks! Over millions of years, the octopus evolved to lose its hard shell. They are extremely flexible and can squeeze into tiny crevices to hide from predators.
Sea urchins use a unique mouthpart called “Aristotle’s Lantern,” made up of five tooth-like plates for scraping food off surfaces.
Sea stars can regrow their limbs, making them one of the ocean’s most resilient animals.

Crustaceans wear their skeletons on the outside (exoskeleton). They have segmented bodies, jointed legs, and not one but two pairs of antennae!
Shrimp are diverse crustaceans found in both freshwater and marine environments, and vary widely in size. Many act as “cleaners” by removing dead tissue (just like in Finding Nemo).
You can tell male and female spider crabs apart by their undersides—males have a narrower, elongated shape, while females have a wider, more triangular one.
Crabs are decapod crustaceans with eight walking legs and two pincers (unless they lose a few in fights with predators or other crabs).

Mollusks are incredibly diverse and have unique "superpowers." They share basic features like a soft body and a muscular "foot." Their evolutionary adaptations are endlessly captivating.
Scallops have between 40 and 200 tiny eyes that detect light, movement, and shapes.
Slipper shells are single-shelled snails that are “protandrous”—they start as males and later become females. They are found stacked together with lower, larger females topped by smaller males that change sex as they grow.
Clams are bivalve mollusks, meaning they have two shells connected by a hinge. They use their tongue-like foot to move across or bury themselves in sand.

Marine mammals communicate with sound to find mates, establish territory, maintain social groups, and identify individuals—especially for mothers and their young. Noise pollution in the ocean can disrupt communication, cause injury, and alter behavior in marine mammals.
Dolphins use “motherese,” a higher-pitched way of communicating with their calves—similar to how humans talk to babies.
Humpback whales are baleen whales known for the distinctive hump before their dorsal fin.
Fin whales are the second largest cetaceans, just behind blue whales. They were heavily hunted for their blubber, which people used for oil and meat.

The ocean holds the secrets of the Earth's past.
Fish fossils form when organisms are rapidly buried and protected from scavengers and oxygen as minerals replace their organic material—in a process known as fossilization.
Brain corals grow very slowly and can live up to 900 years, forming the foundation of reef ecosystems. Their exoskeletons contain records of water temperature and chemistry.
Sediment cores can reveal when past storms occurred, as only strong storms move large grains into basin areas and form distinct layers on the seafloor.

Ocean ecosystems are complex and captivating. Learning about it firsthand makes these facts even more meaningful.
Green crabs are invasive to Cape Cod! They can disrupt local ecosystems.
Comb jellies can eat other comb jellies—even larger ones—by biting off pieces using specialized cilia structures in their mouths.
Meroplankton are tiny juvenile animals that begin life drifting in the water before either settling onto the seafloor or becoming swimmers.
Cormorants are expert diving birds that can hold their breath on average between one and two minutes.
The ocean’s natural pH is around 8.1, but increased carbon dioxide absorption, due to climate change, is making the ocean progressively more acidic.

Opportunities like the WHOI O-STEAM Fellowship allow students to explore these ideas beyond the classroom—through real research, fieldwork, and discovery—and provide them with a strong, unique community of lifelong friends and mentors. As someone who was able to participate in this incredible program, I am forever grateful for this opportunity and the unforgettable memories that accompany it. - A.V.