After a frustrating 3 hours on ArcGIS I noticed everything was broken. The original map was projected in NAD 1927 Zone 10 as a attempted to fix it items disappeared and got worse than the original projection from “unknown.” This was not fun and was a blow to moral. The only fix was to restart my entire ArcGIS project. This is the effort from this week.
I just finished writing my draft results section of my research project. I compiled the raw data into graphs to begin statistical analysis. Overall the project is going well. My next scheduled island trip is March 21-25 where i plan to lay rebar at all my site locations.
Last week was extremely exciting! I finally planted all the seeds I collected in the greenhouse. Evie, who is doing the same experiment with the Torrey pines, and i stayed at the greenhouse until midnight to plant 800 seeds each. It was quite a long and painful experience but it should lead to some great results. I also had to burn all the pine needles I collected from my sites which took even more of my time. With smoke in my face and tears in my eyes i worked into the night for the good of science.
I struggled to finish getting my data entered this weekend. Every time I attempted to graph my channel profiles I found a new large error. After approximately forty eight hours of focused data entry, I finalized a majority of my channel profiles. However, I’m still attempting to find a way to enter my vegetation data.
Here’s an example!
I will be spending the extra day we have in 2016 going through all this debris I collected. Processing all of the debris collected from my winter surveys is taking much lon
ger this time around that it did from the fall surveys. I think because there is way more tiny plastic fragments then last time, which may have something to do with the large winter swells we’ve been having. Either way, I am chugging along. The goal is to have everything processed by the end of this week so I can focus on writing and my NOLA trip after that! Have a good week everyone! 
I am taking some risks here. This is a T&LI blog so most of our entries deal with technology, but I have another passion in the classroom, and that it is Service Learning. So when brainstorming to write this entry, I was wondering how much interest can Service Learning elicit among technology “inclined” instructors reading […]
Last week was spent getting the greenhouse on the CI campus set up for germination trials. Part of my capstone focuses on the germination of Santa Cruz Island Bush Mallow (Malocothamnus fasciculatus), which is an endangered species and also an island endemic. This species was included in my native seed mix, so by conducting germination trials in the greenhouse, I will be able to observe the viability of the seeds and also measure the percentage of success based on the number of seeds planted and the number of seedlings which germinate.
Well this week Erika, Chris, Cause and myself were at the Channel Islands boating center where we got to see all of the student present the finds that they have been doing research on for the last two weeks. They all did amazing well. The High School students really knew their stuff as well as the Middle School students. When everything was done the students had time to look at some stuff in the front office. I was very impressed by it all. While students that didn’t have to sit through presentations they got to go out and do some kayaking. It was a good end to this unit.
Our Next unit with the students is going out to Santa Rosa Islands. That will be so great, I can’t wait to get the students out to see them. Most of them haven’t even been out to the islands so it will be a real treat for them.
The middle of Water Canyon has meander frequencies within the watershed at this location. The meandering of the stream is meant to slow the velocity of the water. The stream is at its widest of widths during these meanders, producing floodplains and more gradual of slopes to the terraces. This allows for different vegetation types to grow these areas. With a smaller slope, shrubs and trees are on the terraces intermingled with annual grasses. The reduced slopes and wider floodplains allow for more forb species to grow in the area. The transect had a species richness of 10 species and no bare ground throughout the entire transect. The species recorded were annual grasses, spreading grasses (Bermuda or Salt Grass), Daucus pusillus, Marsh Baccarus, Thistle, and other unknown forbs, Cattails, Toyon, Sagebrush, and Coyote Bush. The average density, the number of species per sample, was 1.348. The average height for Coyote Bush was 122 centimeters, Cattails was 212 centimeters, perennial grasses were 22 centimeters, annual grasses were 38 centimeters, Daucus pusillus was 33 centimeters, Marsh Baccarus was 135 centimeters, and Sagebrush was 126 centimeters, Thistle was 31 centimeters, Toyon was 55 centimeters, and unknown forbs were 30 centimeters throughout the entire transect.
Hello fellow classmates!
First thing first, as I imagine you will be reading this after Tuesday March 1, I want to say congratulations on getting your personal Inquiry project done. While the personal inquiry project presented many challenges, forced us to think critically and encouraged us to write a paper
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