Friday September 26, 2008

It was great talking to all of you on Friday. I'm sorry you couldn't see me but sometimes the the signal just doesn't pick up. I spent yesterday on the ground on my knees and stomach searching for seedlings. We moved from the forest/tundra to the forest area where there were more trees and plenty of of mosses. It was quite difficult to find anything, but we finally find an entire little grouping of seedlings. It was so exciting to find them even though we had to pull them out of the ground for lab work.  We gathered the same data on the seedlings as we did on the trees: height,diameter, condition, and ground foliage. We had to gather a minimum of 50 in our plotted area for a sampling study. I could barely get up from my knees to gather my tools, and then get back down to do the measurements. It is hard, tedious, meticulous work that science researchers have to do to gather data in order to prove their hypothesis. It is also true that scientists need teams of volunteers to do this labor intensive work over a period of weeks, months and even years. The researcher for this study will need four years to attempt to quantify his information and formulate an argument to support his theory.

Tomorrow Saturday is our day off and we will tour Churchill. Lots of pictures to share.