Steph's Logbook

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The lake and the mountains have become my landscape, my real world.

Georges Simenon

Hello? Hi, its me! Remember me?

Wow, oh wow! It has been awhile. I have finally found time to crawl out from under my pile of work, stress, land commitments to write (for fun this time…but more about that later).

Midterms

As the semester progressed, midterms became closer and the stress was climbing. At the field station, since we have each class all day once a week, midterms were slightly spread out. This was so we did not have to cram and stress for multiple exams at once. Fall Break gave us a little break during that time from October 11th-14th. We all survived and made it through together. One nice thing about living with people who are taking the same classes as you are is that you can study together. We took advantage of that and helped each other understand the content. We definitely feel each other’s struggles!

The End of Boating Season

As the weather got colder, our opportunities to go out on the boat for class were growing slim. Our limnology professor took advantage of Raystown Lake for the last time with our class. We replicated our survey from the beginning of the semester to compare data from different seasons. This was a very cold morning and unfortunately one of our boats broke down. However, it was nice to have one last boat ride this semester.

A few of us also decided to kayak for the last time. It was just barely warm enough and it was super windy. It was a lot easier to paddle in when we got to the cove out of the wind. If you ever want to experience ocean kayaking, just put in at the field station on a windy day!

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Research, Research, and More Research

My research project for the semester is completed and I just finished writing the first draft of my paper for it. It has been a lot of work and A LOT of writing this past week! We spent our snow day last week writing our papers all day long by the warm fireplace in Shuster Hall. As a refresher, my group studied the effects of Acid or Abandoned Mine Drainage (AMD) restoration in Miller Run. This stream is located in a previously mined region in Central PA. The local watershed association has completed many restoration projects and our goal was to monitor the streams progress in recovery. We sampled various water quality parameters, kick netted for benthic macroinvertebrates, and electrofished for brook trout in the stream. We only spent 3 days in the field, but many more days in the lab identifying macroinvertebrates. To be honest, I have never identified anything to the genus level, so this was very difficult. However, I learned fast (thanks to help from classmates and professors) and feel like I have learned a lot from this experience! I will be receiving revisions on my paper from my professor in the upcoming weeks and will complete the paper. 

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Also, I revisited my project from the Spring semester, which was tracking the movement of brown trout in the Little Juniata River. I had to opportunity to join other students on the project to present our research at a poster session as part of the 2018 Susquehanna River Symposium at Bucknell University. It was intriguing to see the other research occurring within the watershed and to answer questions about my own work. We also heard from Christopher E. Williams, who is the Senior Vice President for Conservation for American Rivers. The company’s website states their mission is “to protect wild rivers, restore damaged rivers and conserve clean water for people and nature”. Williams discussed his career path, which included law school. He also discussed how our world is entering a “water insecure future” and what that means for our resources. This also includes having too much water; for example, the flooding in Ellicott City. Rivers are important for channeling water and also for providing it. This does not even account for the life in the water and the surrounding areas that rely on the resource. Overall, it was an interesting keynote address and it definitely had me thinking about the big picture of all of my freshwater research. 

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Lastly, I am presenting my research from last summer at ORNL in a poster session on December 13th in Washington D.C. at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2018. The conference is being held at Walter E. Washington Convention Center. If you are planning on attending or know a colleague attending, let me know! I would love to connect with more scientists. I will be attending the conference late due to my finals in the beginning of the week, but I will be there the 13th and the 14th.

Here are the details:

Abstract Title: Quantifying Fine-root Branching Response to Experimental Ecosystem Warming Utilizing Image Analysis Software 
Presentation Type: Poster 
Session Date and Time: Thursday, 13 December 2018; 13:40 – 18:00 
Session Number and Title: B43M: Plant–Soil Interactions Under Global Warming: Learning Mechanisms from Multiyear Field Experiments and Natural Gradients Posters 
Location: Convention Center; Hall A-C (Poster Hall)

Study Abroad

As this semester comes to an end, my plans for study abroad have begun. I was officially accepted to the GAIAS program through Universidad San Francisco de Quito a few weeks ago. I am currently in the midst of attaining my VISA, scheduling flights and classes, and figuring out my medications while abroad. There is a lot to do before I go, but I am really excited!!! I cannot believe it is almost a month away.

NOAA Internship

In my last post, I mentioned that on October 1st the database for Hollings scholars to begin viewing internships would open. I spent a few days casually viewing the projects listed and gawking at the amazing locations they were in. However, I did not see a project that really stuck out to me, but I decided to pick a few that I wanted to learn more about and could see myself participating in. I emailed one potential mentor about his project and scheduled a phone interview. After sending that email and not feeling as excited as I felt I should, I decided to look more into the projects that included some outreach or education. In 2017, I had an environmental education internship and loved it, but I knew that was not all I wanted to do. In 2018, I had a research internship and also loved the experience, but it still did not fulfill everything I wanted. I always thought it would be great to have a job where I could do research and outreach. I also really love studying the Chesapeake Bay, but I was trying to go to another ecosystem. 

Well, you know what? Like my dad says, the doors of opportunity do not just open for me. Instead, they run up and throw themselves down in front of me. There was this one project that I saw when I first looked and it had the word education in it. I did not even click on the description because I kept telling myself, “This is NOAA! You should do research!”. You can guess what happened next. The words “Chesapeake Bay” finally called my name enough and curiosity caused me to click on the project. I only read the first few sentences before I copied the whole internship information page and emailed it to my mom with the subject “AMAZING INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITY”. 

I emailed, scheduled a Skype interview, had the interview, and got the position. It was an amazing interview and I never felt more qualified or excited about something in my career. They emailed me less than an hour after our interview to offer me the position. It really feels meant to be! I will be doing a site visit on December 16th-18th to meet my mentors, tour the facility, and the area. 

My project is “Translating Chesapeake Bay Research and Stewardship Projects into Useful, Hands-on Education Products” at the Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Virginia on the campus of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS). This project is exciting for me because I will get to do both of the things I love: research and outreach. I will be living in Williamsburg, VA this summer and will also be looking for apartments for the summer soon. Let me know if you have any connections to the area or any tips for my upcoming summer.

Field Station Fun

As always, I try to share some of what I do when I am not in class or doing research. At the station, we have had a lot of fun and bonding experiences lately. In early October, we dug out this years crop from the potato patch! We have been eating lots of yummy potatoes as a result of this adventure. 

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To celebrate Halloween, we carved pumpkins as a group, toasted pumpkin seeds, and decorated our fireplace for the season.

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Each semester, the station hosts an Etiquette Dinner to teach us which fork to use and how not to embarrass ourselves in that kind of setting. Our group also decided we wanted to do a “murder mystery” game. Everyone dressed up in character assigned ahead of time and we enjoyed our meal, while trying to discover who the “murderer” was. We definitely had a lot of fun!

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While trying to finish up our papers, we had a snow day. Due to the limited time in class, we still received work over email, but it was still a snow day! I spent the majority of the day writing, but in the evening when the snow ended, some of us decided it was the right time to go sledding in the drive way. 

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I never thought I was going to experience snow at the field station, but I am really glad I did. It was so beautiful!

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Also…we are in the woods so sometimes trees fall…in the middle of the road.

Call me Lumberjack Letourneau!

Our class spent one day collecting and identifying macroinvertebrates to assess the health of another AMD stream in PA for community service. Shout out to Marissa for the awesome picture!

Lastly, my mom came and visited one weekend. I took her to Trough Creek State Park and Rainbow Falls. We took pictures and she even got some of me!

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See you after finals!!! 🙂