Showing off our green thumbs
Posted from Fresno, California, United States.
It was a warm day in the delta, but well worth the manual labor to create a community garden!
Archive for date: March 19th, 2015
Planting a community garden in Buras
Coming and Going
We have had a great time on the islands, and have had many successes, but unfortunately all things have to come to an end (for some of us). Team leader Paul and Dr. Dilly’s intertidal team headed back to the mainland, while team members Chris and Rebecca, stayed behind to complete the 3 weeks worth of surveying the MPAs. Even though the university is on spring break, the research must go on!
The intertidal group came back early because they will be presenting their research which is titled “Channel Islands Intertidal Ecology: Past, Present and Future” at a Council on Ocean Affairs, Science and Technology (COAST) undergraduate research conference.
April marks a very busy month for us, as we are going to be doing a lot of STEM outreach, including building ROV’s with high and middle school students, along with mentoring some middle school robotics club students! We will be making three short trips to the Channel Islands with the kids, aboard the NOAA research vessel the R/V Shearwater and deploying ROVs!
We’ll be posting up videos soon with some of the highlights of what we saw, as mentioned before, here’s the video of the harbor seal headbutting our ROV!
Buras Food Garden
We are back in Buras, LA planting another garden!
IRLC Students Describe Their Research
Developing the ability to communicate in professional settings is an important skill. Often a researcher has only 30-seconds or a minute to explain a complex research topic to another scholar. In the IRLC students are asked to develop a short presentation–an elevator speech–aimed at describing their research to someone familiar with their field.
Lisa Clark is a Junior and a Political Science major working on understanding the social dynamics that promote, or undermine, bipartisanship in Congress. In this clip she explains her research.
Miguel Velazquez is a Senior and a Nursing student. His research centers on feelings of self-efficacy among Nursing students. In his short speech he describes why self-efficacy is important.
A look at the Gulf
Posted from Fresno, California, United States.
On the way to work on the garden, we got a quick peek over the levee to see the Gulf.
NOLA environmental issues .
One can cleary see the consequences of allowing a river to flow in a permanent path. However, change of sedimentary regime, salt water intrusion, coastal erosion, and land development are also some of the factors that are contributing to the overall issue.
Mississippi River side of road:
Land near the Mississippi River has healthier vegetation due to Lower levels of salinity.
Gulf of México side of road :
Increasing water salinity due to the mentioned factors are taking a toll on the vegetation near the Gulf of México.
Road snack !
Pork liver sausage , and some NOLA hot sauce to go with it . Food here has yet to disappoint.
Day 8: big industry in Louisiana
Traveling down freeway 23 we can clearly see examples of the big oil companies in Louisiana. This facility featured below is one of chevrons refineriers.
NOJO Jam
Our friends the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, helmed by Irvin Mayfield and Ronald Markham were in full force at their regular Wednesday night showcase at Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse on the first floor of the Royal Sonestra. Celebrating six years, this is one of three clubs Irvin owns and has become the premier spot to catch jazz on Bourbon Street (or “bringing Jazz back to Bourbon Street” as Irvin likes to say).
We have seen Irvin almost every year of our trip. It began with seeing him at Snug Harbor our first trip, then with some of his High School proteges at Snug Harbor the next trip. That following year I brought him and the full NOJO to CSUCI with the help of funding from IRA (the fund that supports our trips to New Orleans). Needless to say that was the musical highlight for Camarillo that year. The next year was the only year we didn’t technically hear him perform while in New Orleans. He had set-up a ballroom for us (at the Royal Sonestra) and was going to do a private show for us. This would have been epic, but a massive French Quarter-wide power outage translated in it taking nearly 2 hours to go 3 miles and his musicians had to leave for their paying gig (but Irvin still spoke to that year’s class by candle light for a few minutes before he too had to flee to make his next gig). Since then we have been kindly hosted by him at one club (once catching a reunion of his Bill Summers partnership, Los Hombres Calientes).
Maybe it is my senility settling in, but it really seems as if the shows keep getting better and tighter each trip. Needless to say his “friends from California” were grinning ear to ear for most of the 1:35 first set. The typical “no way”s and “that was crazy: did you hear that”s were the most common refrain from the students as they giddily took in some fantastic jazz. Much thanks for Irvin and the crew for a great evening, for dedicating so many songs to us (and funking up the lyrics with references to us), and for giving Tevin a new nickname: Cali Swaggar.
