Got my Scuba Open Water Cert!
This weekend I finished my Open Water Dive certification with a couple friends. We are all going to get our AAUS Scientific Dive done this June to be ready for underwater research.
Archive for year: 2016
Vegetation is holding me down
My entire paper is essentially complete except for formatting. Well, aside from the fact that it’s becoming a nuisance trying to find a way to represent the vegetation in the creek. Because the vegetation surveys that I did were at a different number system than the topographical surveys; the data shows vegetation in areas that, in the topographical surveys, could be on top of a rock or on the side of a cut bank. I underestimated the necessary precision for fluvial geomorphology. The slightest difference within the graphed cross-sections could represent a huge portion of data: a moved rock, a larger thalweg, a new thalweg, build up of debris. However, it seems so simple, but at the same time a waste of time, to eliminate my vegetation data and simply post pictures.
(Site 3 downstream) After Debris Flow 2014:
(Site 3 downstream) February 26, 2016:
Effective Design Tips for Creating Instructional Materials
Happy April everyone! I can hardly believe that the Spring 2016 semester is almost over. Last week, I spent most of spring break at the CSUN16 Conference on Accessibility and I wanted to share a few tips with you to keep in mind when creating instructional materials. Accessibility may not be the most exciting topic for […]
AAG
This past week, I traveled to San Francisco for the AAG conference. I arrived on Tuesday night and stayed up late finalizing my poster. On Wednesday, my partners printed the poster and drove up to San Francisco. I attended the conference on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. During these days, I sat in on several talks and attended the poster presentations. On Thursday, I presented the poster with my partners, Dylan Fadich and Ryan Summers. The conference was a great learning and networking experience. I had the opportunity to learn about a wide range of topics within such a short amount of time. The conference was also an opportunity to meet other researchers and discuss our varied topics. This was nice not only to broaden our networks, but also to get other peoples idea’s about our topic.
I would like to thank Dr. Linda O’Hirok for providing us with this opportunity. Additionally, I would like to thank CSUCI for funding us to go to the conference.
Greenhouse Work
My trees continue to grow and every time I go to the greenhouse to check on the growth of the trees there are more germinating. Although I am very excited to see my plants doing so well and giving me plenty of data I have to spend a lot more time in the greenhouse. Every three days I have to go and measure the growth of each individual tree and look for newly germinated trees. With 60-70 trees that can take a long time and I have been getting a sore back form bending over to check the measurements. I sure hope that I have some useful data by the end of this project.
Preliminary Results
Hey everyone! I haven’t finished collecting data yet but there are a few things I have noticed from the growth I have so far. First of all I am only getting growth in the high water regime, unfortunately the low water regime cannot sustain the trees at such a fragile state. One of the main things I have seen is that both populations are growing much better under conditions with ash cover as you can see in the pictures below. The top photo is high water without ash and the bottom photo is high water with ash.
There has been a much better germination success rate for both populations with ash cover but beyond this I have noticed that under conditions of high water with ash cover the mainland population seems to have greater germination success than the island population. Under conditions of high water without ash on the other hand the island population seems to be having greater germination success than the mainland population. The preliminary data seems to be supporting my hypothesis but we will have to wait and see until I finish collecting and analyzing my data.
Research Update 4/3/16
I spent this first week back from spring break looking at peer suggestions for revisions throughout my entire paper and exploring areas in which I can cut information out, or add it in if needed. In addition I practiced my elevator speech, seeing how I have not done so in a while.
I received the business cards required for class (100 cards for &7). I included my school, email, major, and this website in an effort to produce a professional looking business card.
Below is a picture of a 10×10 meter plot located in direct sunlight without any Torrey pine.
Capstone Overall Update
This past week, I have been editing and working on my capstone paper. I am going to work on my statistical data and my poster board during this week to be prepared for the SAGE conference coming up.
Common Garden Update: My few saplings that have sprouted are still growing strong!
Results
After sorting and compiling all my data into tables I decided to display this information using graphs so I could better interpret my results. Out of the 8 parameters I tested, only chlorophyll, dissolved oxygen, specific conductivity, and temperature had noticeable differences among the channelized and natural portions of Conejo Creek. But, in almost every parameter Calleguas Creek showed an additional separation of values signifying even lower water quality. Here are some of the graphs I created showing the disparity between channelized and natural Conejo Creek.
Training Undergrads in the Microplastics Lab!
Today I had a great group of undergraduates in the Microplastics lab learning how to process sand. They all helped me organize and catalog the 100 plus samples we have gathered from all over the globe! A few of them are thinking about continuing the project into their senior capstone and investigating the abundance of plastics across our global sandy beach ecosystem.
