Thursday, Dec.11

Rain, rain, rain! It's pouring here. Not like a Texas downpour, but just a constant, steady rain ALL DAY! This morning they asked for 3 people to go back into the study area and finish off the last 5 plots (10 meter X 10 meter areas). I realized that this might my last chance to do anything like this, so off I went with two of the other teachers. It was cold and wet and pretty miserable, but we managed to get 3 of the 5 remaining plots done before lunch. It was so miserable that we finally just began to laugh at each other - we did look pretty funny, all bundled up against the cold with our lovely orange vests over everything, and water dripping off our noses! If you look at the picture, you can see the two tape measures that we use to mark off the plot. The one on the bottom of the plot (south side) is the X axis and the other is the Y axis. So each and every tree is recorded with a very precise location, such as X = 4.35m and Y = 7.82m. So it will be easy to make very exact maps of what trees are where!


Here is a picture of data collected last month. Notice any patterns in the arrangement of the trees? Anything interesting? (Click on the map to make it larger!)



Working outside today reminded me about doing field studies. Students always think, how cool it would be do work outside atudying nature. Yes, it's great fun when the sun is shining and the birds are singing, but when the weather is nasty the work still goes on - cold or wet or miserable, it doesn't matter! But I am warm and dry now (hooray!) This afternoon I joined the others doing some data entry.....all the numbers and information we have been writing down has to be 1)checked for accuracy and 2)entered into the computer. It's the tedious and often boring part of science -but VERY important! This afternoon we took some time off to meet with the lead scientist of this project, Dr. Jess Parker. Here is a short video of him talking a little about global warming. When I get back, we are going to have some LONG talks about global warming and we are going to start a project that will hopefully affect the ENTIRE city and maybe even the Brazos Valley and beyond. So who's ready to beccome a "Global Warming Warrior?"