The past week has consisted mostly of me piecing together the methods section of my paper. My first draft is done and I will be getting some good peer reviewed feedback on it in class today. I also continued my data collection this week and will be turning my attention more towards the analysis and comparison of water quality between sites over the next several weeks.
Like any research, variables arise that were unplanned for. Elastic cords are used to hold the infrared cameras on a post, and apparently they were not tight enough. While my main objective is to photograph rats, the island foxes have proved themselves to be incredibly curious. One fox in Lobo Canyon was inspecting the camera, and was able to pull the elastic cord over the viewfinder, blocking half the view in the middle. After this, the camera recorded nearly a thousand more photos that are obscured by the cord until I was able to check the camera again.
This photo was taken in the upper reaches of the Water Canyon Watershed on Santa Rosa Island. In this area of the watershed, the terraces are bare with eroded soil and small pockets of bunch grasses. There are steep slopes in the top of this watershed, similar to most watersheds. Vegetation not only contributes to healthy soils but also acts as a stabilizer and helps reduce erosion. Due to the lack of vegetation in this area it has unhealthy soils and the land is prone to land slides in the case of heavy storms. This photo shows the aftermath of the first rainstorm of the current El Nino. There was visible slippage of the terraces, filling the stream channel with sediment. This was the only significant change I saw after the first storm. I am curious to see the changes after all the storms during the El Nino. I predict there will be substantial changes throughout the watershed due to the condition of the soil, lack of vegetation, and types of vegetation on the terraces.
We all know that there’s always improvement in our writing, but we’ve never really used writer’s example. When we read it’s for our own pleasure, to get lost in a world completely different to our own. Other people read because they’re designated to read a certain book for class not because they want to read. But most of all we read for information, we read to understand things, to learn new things, to learn how to do things. Personally, I never read to improve my writing and after reading the article “How to Read Like a Writer” I realized that if I actually put thought into focusing on the writing techniques the writer uses it might actually help me improve my writing.
After recently re-reading The Host I realized that the author has a distinctive way of writing and specifically portraying her characters and making them come to life. The Host is science fiction novel about an alien invasion, these aliens call themselves souls, and take control of the human body erasing the consciousness of the people just leaving behind their memories and knowledge. The author really shows the bonds between her characters and how they grow together. Even though the plot is great I personally believe that the characters bring the story to life because they seem so real.
Her technique is she makes her character emotionally relate to the readers. 
The characters she creates are so emotionally human, they feel like we do and act like we do. She has an almost accurate definition of our own personal definition of beauty. “It’s not the face, but the expressions on it. It’s not the voice, but what you say. It’s not how you look in that body, but the thing you do with it. You are beautiful.” And even though it’s highly romanticized it’s still very true. Though society has a different opinion of beauty we have our own.
She thinks that there needs to be a balance in life, you can’t know happiness if you don’t know pain. “Perhaps there could be no joy on this planet without an equal weight of pain to balance it out on some unknown scale.” The technique she uses here is using her own characters to portray her own personal opinions. I’ve seen many writers use this, so they speak freely without the responsibility of their words unless they specifically say the words are their own opinion.
Just like her definition of beauty she has her own definition of love and hatred that some of us can relate to in some way. 
“What was it that made this human love so much more desirable to me than the love of my own kind? Was it because it was exclusive and capricious? The souls offered love and acceptance to all. Did I crave a greater challenge? Or was it simply better somehow? Because these humans hate with so much fury, was the other end of the spectrum that they could love with more heart and zeal and fire?” she describes love through the voice of the protagonist which just so happens to be a “soul” and the alien describes love in what she has learned through her time with the humans. The author uses the “soul’s” voice to portray her own vision of the love and hatred humans feel.
If we look closely there are so many techniques in writing that we should develop ourselves when we write.
Works Cited
Bunn, Mike.”How to Read Like a Writer.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Ed. Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. Vol. 1. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor P, 2010. 71-86. Writing Spaces. Web. 2 Feb. 2016.
Meyer, Stephenie. The Host. New York: Little, Brown, 2008. Print.
SONY DSC
I never gave much thought to why a writer publishes a piece of their work. Simply to entertain readers with their fascinating tales and wild imaginations. Perhaps To release the emotions they endure that others may not understand. It may even be to live vicariously through their characters in an alternate universe. Whatever the case may be, they equally have the same opportunity to allow other readers to understand the message they depict through their work. These authors, through technique, style, organization, and dedication to their work have given us their messages to the best of their ability, so that we are capable of understanding. That being said, you must ask yourself, do you read to read, or do you read to understand?
Once you are capable of understanding why an author has published this piece and for who, you are introduced to different components of writing such as style and technique. This then allows you to develop not only your own style and technique but better your work through the style and techniques of others. Adopting writing habits is a common thing. This is what we call “reading like a writer”.
Soon after I was able to grasp this concept I read multiple pieces of work by Edgar Allan Poe. He wrote this piece known as, Silence – a fable and another one also named Silence the sonnet. Before I read this I asked myself, what genre this is written in, what point the author tries to get across, and who his audience is. i also ask what correlation these pieces have. Poe writes this fable and sonnet, in a gothic mystery type of style, for a more hostile audience possibly old enough to comprehend the idea of death. In his sonnet, Poe speaks of two faces of silence, the one of body, and the one of soul. “There is a two-fold silence- sea and shore- Body and soul(Poe).” He speaks of fear that humanity has of death and how he is no longer afraid. he has come to terms with it.
In his fable, Poe’s narrator is a man who is being told a story by a demon. At the end of the story the narrator explains that it is a most noble story but he can not join in on the laughter that the demon displays. After a full analysis of this fable, I realize that Edgar Allan Poe explains through his story that sometimes we are left alone with our thoughts and that frightens us, therefore we use the chaos as a distraction. Our inability to cope with ourselves and chaos is regarded by humanity’s affinity for chaos. Thesilence within our soul is destructive. “And the man turned his attention from the heaven, and looked out upon the dreary river Zaire, and upon the yellow ghastly waters, and upon the pale legions of the water-lilies. And the man listened to the sighs of the water-lilies, and of the murmur that came up from among them. And I lay close within my covert and observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in the solitude –but the night waned and he sat upon the rock(Poe).”
While I read both these works, i had to ask myself questions in between. These questions include the style and technique the author uses in his stories, which techniques I would like to adopt myself, and how the style of writing complimented the author and the story itself. Once I have identified which techniques I would like to assign to myself, I must determine whether or not they would compliment me as a writer and the pieces that I work on. As an author, Edgar Allan Poe writes using senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, voice). Using these senses in writing allows the reader to better visualize the setting and so on. “The waters of the river have a saffron and sickly hue –and they flow not onwards to the sea, but palpitate forever and forever beneath the red eye of the sun with a tumultuous and convulsive motion. For many miles on either side of the river’s oozy bed is a pale desert of gigantic water-lilies(Poe).” Being able to better visualize the scene and the setting allows the reader to connect to the story more. They get a sense of placement in this story. This is a technique I would like to adopt in my own writing.
To read like a writer is to analyze a piece of writing with the intent to understand and adopt techniques and writing styles made by the author. It also to further understand why, and for who the author has written this piece. Reading like a writer will further develop your own skills and techniques in your own pieces of work.
SONY DSC
Works Cited
Bunn, Mike.”How to Read Like a Writer.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Ed. Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. Vol. 1. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor P, 2010. 71-86. Writing Spaces. Web. 2 Feb. 2016.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “Silence – A Fable by Edgar Allan Poe – Poestories.com.” Poestories. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Feb. 2016.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “Text: Edgar Allan Poe, “Sonnet — Silence” (Text-03), Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, April 1840, 6:166.” Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Feb. 2016.
This Saturday CalPoly Pomona hosted our first-ever North American Drone Educator’s Conference. Folks from across California (and a few from further afield) gathered on a warm Saturday afternoon at the Kellogg Conference Center in Pomona, California to discuss a myriad of aspects of teaching students to create, use, and become otherwise professional members of our burgeoning UAV community.
Those of us who have been working to professionalize the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have accumulated many arrows in our backs and a surprising number of battle scars over the past few years. Taking new ideas into academia sounds like something easy and natural; Isn’t that what a university is supposed to be about in the first place?!? But when it comes to new technologies and systems that are so different from our common experience AND that interact with folks outside of the confines of our campuses in potentially revolutionary or disruptive ways, caution and trepidation are the norm. “Just wait around until other people have figured it out, have made all the standards, defined the debate, and then we will just follow them,” is the increasingly common response from administrations (especially the risk management folks) and those in charge of setting policy. The response many of us trying to interject UAV efforts into formal educational programs have received is either crickets chirping (from the non-confrontational folks) or “wow, let me study this and have our lawyers look this over” (a mantra repeated for months or years on end). When some kind of answer other than an outright “no, you can’t do that” pops into our email inbox, it is most often, “Can you please send along some examples of other programs that are doing this now?” And therein lies the rub. With so many apparent reasons to avoid the perceived headache of diving into the deep end of the UAV pool, committees and administrators charged with approving new curricula want to see a tried and true model of effective UAV education. (I am so grateful to have already passed through those hurdles at my own institution.)
Into this breach, Josh Friedman (owner of One Zero Digital Media and faculty at Golden West College in Huntington Beach) had the great idea of convening a conference wherein educators could learn from each other and network with a host of experts with a range of skill sets: lawyers, administrators, environmental scientists, video artists, manufacturers, etc.
Cue the first “Drone Ed” conference…
We kicked off the conference with a wonderful keynote from DJI‘s Romeo Durscher. Romeo, Director of Education at DJI and the founder of DJI University, ran though his own background and called for pushing STEAM rather than STEM educational experiences. He next turned to an amusing exploration of the rhetoric of UAVs in the popular press and a comparison of the public perception of UAVs in the United States relative to just about everywhere else on the globe (note: if you are interested in this, see the results of our annual poll of attitudes surrounding UAVs that we will release later this Spring).
He then moved to a litany of recent examples of UAVs pushing the boundary of what people typically think of as traditional UAV activity. Examples included using drones to transport human organs, fight fires, respond in the wake of natural disasters, and so forth.
He concluded his keynote with a neat, eye-candy example of the new perspectives UAVs can bring to traditional approaches of telling stories. In 2015, he was part of a support team for ABC’s Good Morning America live broadcast from the world’s largest cave, Son Doong in Vietnam. While it wasn’t particularly impressive on the Kellogg Center’s screen, the actual video is awesome (see below). All in all, a fun presentation of our current state of affairs with UAVs and of their potential value for education.
Note: you can see the original Good Morning America feed here.
My biggest disappointment with the conference was the general lack of folks currently teaching UAV-based courses. Our Channel Islands classes (note, our class website is under repair until Monday) and CalPoly Pomona’s Extended Ed course (actually taught by Brock and Vinny and their crew from FlySpan) were the only ones much discussed. I was very happy to learn about other programs that I was woefully ignorant of, especially the interesting freshman level course at Palomar College (in north San Diego County), and a plethora of courses in the works from everywhere from Redlands to Los Angeles City College.
We had a very interesting curriculum brainstorming session that didn’t produce any curricula per se but provided a stepping stone into a good discussion about what we would all like to see from such programs and courses in the future. I think my personal highlight from this part of the conference was the straight talking challenge to academic programs from 3DR‘s Greg Crutsinger (a self-described recovering academic). He dared us all to get with the program (as the rest of the world is doing) or be left in the dust. From notions that you need not spend a gazillion dollars on equipment to get into the UAV game to over concern about legal restrictions to pushing for practical skill sets, he really provided the jolt that got our conversations off to a fantastic start.
A satisfying time was had by all (or at least most) by critiquing…that’s the polite way to say it…the FAA‘s ostensible “rules” for “safe” UAV operations. Several lawyers in attendance such as Erik Larsen provided some useful answers in the wake of the fantastic pre-recorded discussion about 333 Exemptions and Educational Institutions by Jon Rupprecht. His Rupprecht Law firm has the second greatest number of 333 exemptions granted to date and this certified pilot is a recognized national expert on UAV use and FAA regulations. It was a fantastic session. I hope Josh will be posting this recorded presentation soon. Regardless, I will be posting Jon’s upcoming presentation to our ESRM 370 class here at CSUCI within a few weeks (check back in late February).
Of course the best part of meetings such as this are bumping into old friends, making new ones, and deepening our networks of colleagues. Highlights for me were getting to meet some colleagues in person I had only known virtually (like 3DR‘s Greg Crutsinger and UC Merced‘s Brandon Stark), folks I had not seen in a while (FlySpan‘s Brock Christoval), and folks I just happened to plop down next to for the next session (like 333 Lawyer Erik Larsen and Helicopter pilot Ed Story). My colleagues, students, and I are all better positioned in the wake of the folks we met at this conference and can’t wait to keep those conversations going. I’m looking forward to our next get together and following up with several new colleagues in the weeks ahead. Now get out there and get back in the proverbial trenches!
Camarillo, Calif., Feb. 4, 2016 — A whale surging up from the ocean and splashing back into the waves is one of the ocean’s most magnificent sights, but scientists have never understood exactly why whales put on this spectacular show, called “breaching.”
After five years of study, CSU Channel Islands (CI) Biology lecturer Rachel Cartwright, Ph.D., has an answer as to why whales breach – specifically, young whales. Her findings were published at the end of January in the Public Library of Science, an open-access, peer-reviewed online journal at http://www.plosone.org.
Scientists had long theorized that whales breached as a form of play or socialization, but Cartwright’s research conducted with Biology lecturer Cori Newton, Ph.D., six CI undergraduate researchers, a
nd five supporting organizations, shows that breaching actually strengthens a young whale’s diving capacity.
“Our research clearly demonstrates that extreme exercise, such as breaching, has an important role in the development of the ability to breath-hold for young baleen whales, allowing them to make longer dives,” Cartwright said.
“Baleen” whales describe the approximately 14 species of whale whose mouths are equipped with plates of baleen, a substance similar to keratin. The plates allow them to strain plankton. The humpback and gray whales common in the Santa Barbara Channel are examples of baleen whales.
Cartwright and her team of researchers studied muscle tissue from whales that had died after being stranded. The researchers determined that the exertion required to leap out of the ocean increases the level of myoglobin levels in young whales. Like hemoglobin in humans, myoglobin carries oxygen in the muscles of whales.
Cartwright said breaching is a very specific activity that resembles a somersault starting underwater and rising out of the waves until the whale turns and lands on its back. “Exercise releases calcium in the muscle cells and that calcium is a trigger to this molecular pathway,” she said. When older whales breach, it may be more social in nature, she said.
Undergraduate researchers like Biology major/Chemistry minor Lila Hernandez, 22, were thrilled to be involved in a groundbreaking research project, a privilege often enjoyed just by graduate students.
Hernandez said undergraduate opportunities like this one are part of what drew her to enroll at CI. “Because it’s a smaller school, it gives students the opportunity to actually interact with the professor rather than sit in a class of 500 and just interact with the teacher’s assistant,” she said.
The role Hernandez and the other undergraduate researchers played was to analyze muscle tissue samples in the lab. She hopes to get involved with a career in wildlife management after she graduates in May.
Adding new perspective to the research was an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle or UAV, which the team got permission to operate off the coast of Maui this year.
CI Business lecturer Alan Jaeger and his brother Ryan Jaeger operated the UAVs. Both teach classes in UAV operation through the Ventura County Office of Education.
“The UAV we used was specifically designed to be waterproof so we can operate it safely in the water,” Alan Jaeger said. “Once we locate where the young whale is, we work with Dr. Cartwright and her team to hover the UAV at a safe and specific altitude so we can get the best imagery for aerial measurements.”
Alan Jaeger said he looks forward to further developing this novel use of the UAV technology with help from the students.
Cartwright says she plans to use the aerial photos to assess the body condition and growth rates of humpback whale calves as she continues her research.
Stella at a couple weeks old
The Surfrider meeting was a success! For not knowing what to expect and being a liiiiiittle nervous, I’d say it was a pretty good turn 
out! Everyone was super nice and I am so happy we got the opportunity to share what we’ve been working on. I hope more ESRM students can present some of their research to Surfrider in the future. The cool thing about that meeting was that it forced me to look into my data closer (mostly so I would have something to present) and I ended up finding something pretty interesting.
Since I only have one season of fall data from Santa Rosa Island so far and I didn’t have access to the entire historical database yet, I took information off the 1990 CINP Marine Debris Technical Report. In that document, the number of items of marine debris were listed in 5 broad categories: miscellaneous plastics, derelict fishing gear, non-plastics, plastic packaging, and personal plastic items aka personal effects. I then took the proportion of items in each category out of the total number of items collected that season. I did the same to the data I had from this fall; placed items into the same categories and took a proportion and some the very early results were interesting!
The most interesting thing to me was that the percentage of derelict fishing gear found in 1990 on Santa Rosa & San Miguel was ~5% of all trash found, but in 2015 it had risen to ~26% of all trash found on Santa Rosa! Commercial and recreational fishing in the SB Channel has changed immensely in the past ~25 years, and I kind of wish I had mentioned that more during the Surfrider presentation, but I wasn’t 100% sure about the specifics of it it until I talked to some people afterwards, some being commercial fishermen. For example, the local lobster fishery has taken off as well as the squid, and urc
hin fisheries and technology has changed immensely in the past ~25 years. The creation of MPA’s on within CINMS has also changed things in the fishing industry, and I think all of these factors contribute or have some effect on why we are seeing more derelict fishing gear than other marine debris items now as opposed to the early 90’s. I plan to look more into this as my capstone research continues, but that’s where I am at this week. Back to writing my methods!
For years upon years I thought I had known how to read, I was taught how to read when I was in the first grade. To be quite frank I wasn’t the best reader, but I didn’t give up and I kept trying until I was able to read past two grade levels. Well after all that time I still had no idea I did not know how to read! Hearing that there was a second way and even multiple ways of reading blows me away, because how did I not know about these type of reading styles until thirteen years later. One of these new found reading styles was reading like a writer, which at first sounds like an oxymoron but with some explanation makes a lot of sense.
Reading like a writer is the premise where instead of reading to gather information like normal typical reading styles. Reading like a writer consist of reading in such a way that lends us the ability to learn how a sentence was formed and learn from it so we could then in turn regurgitate back (p. 74). Take for example instead of learning about how gothic cathedrals were build and there history behind them, Reading like a writer offers the reader the ability to build the cathedrals themselves. Oddly enough, even though this is a fairly new thing that I have just recently grasp I feel like I have always kind of read in this way but in a lower elementary type of way.
Despite our instructors never fully teaching us how to read like a writer, but wanting us to grasp it on our own I feel I have persionally did a decent job at it (P. 75). In the recent past months last semester actually during my Environmental class were “forced” to read a book titled Cradle to Cradle written by William McDonough and Michael Braungart where I had used this type of reading style. The novel in short explained how we live in a cradle to grave society throwing away everything we ever use, and how with proper implementation we can transform into a cradle to cradle society. Well in short we had to read this novel, because we had write a final paper for the class which is the ultimate reason as to why I learned how to read in such a way.
The novel was filled with so much insight and information that at first it was so over whelming but soon after I had took my time I was able to gather all the information that was being presented in front of me. Well as it turned out it was perfect timing because I had to participate in many group decisions and arguments about the environment. Now although I was reading this novel for the first time I was not only learning the information that was intended for me to learn but I was underdatnding how the authors had used the information to present their arguments. With me understanding how they presented their arguments I was able to utilze their own techniques for my own self interest.
This is not so much a story of how I actually used reading like a writer, because I believe me telling you would do absolutely nothing for you. Instead this is a story demonstrating that it actually works and I am living proof of it. I have to say and be completely honest that when using reading like a writer, I truly believed I had wrote one of my best essays. So I encourage others to try reading a writer out because one would find that it actually works!
Works Cited
Bunn, Mike.”How to Read Like a Writer.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Ed. Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. Vol. 1. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor P, 2010. 71-86. Writing Spaces. Web. 2 Feb. 2016.
Scroll to top
