Welcome to my CI Keys page, which will be the hub for all of our course information. Please bookmark this page so that you can return to it easily throughout the semester. You can use the menu to view the page for your course. See you soon! – Dr. A
The local Ventura Surfrider has invited us to share our research project as it falls in line with the “Rise Above Plastics” campaign. Tuesday, February 2nd at Patagonia Headquarters in Ventura Dr. Clare Steele, Michaela Miller and I will be presenting our research projects of Pervasive Plastics in our sandy beach environment.
Got all of my surveying done over the break, but noticed a potential problem. With the coming El Nino, we will potentially be seeing storm events in larger frequency and quantities. During the last survey, we struggled through some mud to collect the data. I imagine as the storm events grow, hiking through the mud–or causing erosion–will become problematic!
Other than that, everything’s golden.
3×10 elevation transects complete
2×10 vegetation transects complete
As much time as I’ve spent in the FIT Studio since it opened in 2014, I’d avoided wandering all the way back to the Live Action Studio for fear that I was far from qualified to enter its soundproofed walls. Then this past fall, circumstances compelled me to overcome my reluctance and take on a project that […]
Recovery in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon has been something of a slow recovery when it comes to the most impacted communities (mid- and deepwater). More readily-viewable areas have seen mixed recovery.
Much of the discussion in Louisiana has centered around the payments or “getting back to work.” A new documentary, After The Spill, by Jon Bowermaster, places the aftermath of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill into the context of Louisiana’s perpetual lovefest with the oil and gas industry that has been a key driver of wetland loss and coastal erosion for more than seven decades.
Last Friday, the documentary screened at the Joy Theater in New Orleans. Check out this provocative documentary on a screen near you and join the debate and discussion about the appropriate role of oil and gas extraction along the Gulf Coast.
See Mark Schleifstein’s summary here (from NOLA.com).
On Wednesday Erika, Cause Chris and I had a very good meeting with our contacts in the LiMPETS program whose names are Jessie Altstatt and Julie Bursek. It was a really good and productive meeting. Since they have been working on a number of changes on the program. The changes as far as I can tell have been made to make teaching and learning to do the program a little easier for everyone. They have shorten the species list that we are looking in the tidepools. This was made because about half of the species are not often seen in our area so they were taken out. In regards to making it easier to teach, Jessie and Julie are trying to make multiple tiers in which are more appropriate standards for people of varying qualifications. They are working on this to not only make teaching this either easier or slightly harder for some people but to also have better quality data. There have been multiple groups that want to use the data that is being collected but for many reasons they don’t want to give this data out knowing that people could possibly use it to make big decisions.
Quality control is a big deal since data can be used for many purposes and people often want good quality data for these decisions. For a lot of students that go out on this trip will be the first time that they go out and see the ocean. With this knowledge these students will not be particularly interested on working on science but will want to play in the water or in the sand. This data would most likely not be high in quality so it isn’t right to present it as good data. Julie and Jessie are trying to make different activities that are better for students that just want to play. There will be multiple tiers as I said so there would be more activites for more advance students. This is the main way that Julie and Jessie are trying to increase the quality of the data.
During our time in the meeting we talked about all of this and what they have also been looking at for the changes and if we would be interested in helping them get data sorted and to get more data that will help with the changes. We also went over where we will be looking at the tidepools once we take the kids out and where we will be looking at the sand crabs/ mole crabs. There was very little change being done to the mole crab part of LiMPETS that review went smoothly.
Once we were all done talking we went down to the beach area where we will be taking the kids in February, it should be a very interesting time once it all comes together. I am very excited about it. Hopefully it will all go relatively smoothly.
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