Had a great time on Saturday working with Ventura Surfrider and Ventura Audubon to clean up the nesting area for the threatened Snowy Plover at Ormond beach. This is my second season working with the local nest monitor for the Western Snowy Plover and California Least Tern. I brought my niece and nephews out to learn about the habitat and why picking up trash is so important.
This weekend I worked with kids from Robert J. Frank Middle School in the NOAA B-WET Program at the CI Boating Center. The kids worked on their scientific presentations and got a chance to kayak around the beautiful Channel Islands Harbor. Its great to see future scientists in the making!
This week students presented their research from the Carpinteria State Beach field trip. Students were given research questions that they had to answer after the field trip. Some of the students were unable to collect data for their question so they had to use historical data. Students did a great job on their presentations and were able to handle the questions that were asked after their presentation. Students were excited to give their presentations and to inform their classmates about what they learned. Students were also able to participate in kayaking, for most students this was their first time kayaking and they all had a blast some even asking me when they will doing this again. Here are some pictures of presentations and students kayaking. 
Data entry and statistics are being run on a subset of results to figure out what statistics should be run on the larger set of results that still need to be collected. Graphs are being made to look should be at what the full data set. Problems are occurring in the method difference between the 89 and 16 map but I am working thorough it to do kernel density and create a similar method to merge the two methods to work. I have multiple faculty on board and have had multiple meetings this week and last week with GIS and island experts.
I am in my fifth week of my final semester of undergrad. In my capstone class, I am making progress on my thesis. So far, I have rough drafts for my introduction, methods, and am currently writing my results. This week in class we had to present our project to the class. Overall, there is positive progress for the entire classes projects. This semester will continue to go smoothly if we manage our time and stay on track with our work. Stay tuned to hear my results from my project in the next coming posts.
I began to interpret some of the results from my transects. When talking with other individuals with experience in coastal understandings of sediment, it has been suggested that there is likely to see more erosion during the summer time. This is predicted because Port Hueneme is a south facing beach and will encounter more swell impact. With my transect data we can see more change during the winter months. It is interesting to see more of the beach disapear durring the winter and less during the summer. We can also see the sand build up further south at some of the other more southern transects. The movement of sand can be seen. We are also seeing more scaps along the beach due to the winter storms.
I met with Tom O’Neal from Oxnard City College this week. His expertise and research at Port Hueneme have valuable to my capstone. He has been looking at the changing sand conditions at this beach for many years. We hope to collaborate together to help show the changes at Port Hueneme.
My plan is to create two maps with the data that I am collecting. First, I will use Digital Shoreline Analysis System DSAS to analysis the shoreline change to see if it fits the predicted sediment transportation models. Second, I will make a DEM model of Port Hueneme using the points I have collected from my profiles. This will allow me to calculate the volume of sand that has moved. Instead of using the DEM model, I might be using Pix4D program. Pix4D is a program used to analyse 3D objects. It can create 3D models from 2D pictures. I hope to use this technology, along with a drone, to map Port Hueneme beach. This 3D model of Port Hueneme beach will give me interesting data and help quantify the volume of sand on the beach.
Last weekend I went to my five sites to collect water quality data. I took 5-10 readings from each site just to get variety. I will then take the averages of those readings to compare data between each site. I will also collect data again in a few weeks to see if there are any changes. This data will aid me in my GIS map where I correlate land use around each site with water quality. The picture above is from the Santa Clara site under Bouquet Bridge. There are some fish in this water but they are unfortunately not stickleback.
After receiving feedback from classmates last week, I found some time to tweak the map I had made. While still from the final version, it’s getting there. (I just realized I forgot north arrows and scale bars, that will be worked on this week.)
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