Students Present Summer Research

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Maddie and Jamie with their postersLast Thursday about a hundred undergraduate science students presented the results of their summer research. ENVS was, as always well-represented: Maddie had written up most of the research on her (still preliminary) pollen diagram from Lake Louise in Penwood State Park, while Jamie found some evidence for several periods of increased storminess in sediment-magnetic data from Otsego Lake in Upstate New York.Justin and Dan tried to impress innocent first-year students from Joan’s seminar with their flashy poster on soil sampling in the White Mountains.
Dan and Dave impressing the first years - or notRose and Sarah, on the other hand never quite realized that all those “submit your poster now” e-mails were really directed at them. Not to worry – we’ll make them earn their keep by nominating them for some onerous task in the spring.

First McCookout of the Semester

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with images from guest paparazzi Elizabeth Simon

Rain or shine, a handful of ENVS students and faculty met this Tuesday under the trees behind McCook for the first McCookout. Iver sabotaged a greater turnout by announcing that the event was cancelled due to inclement weather. More food for us!cheesecake_happinessHere Jon demonstrates that cheese in the form of cheese cake and cheese burgers equals happiness, while Cameron’s veggie burger experience seemed less satisfying.
unhappy_veggie_burgerJoan is talking to new students (in the back), while Cameron’s face is reminiscent of Colby Tucker’s face after trying dried fish in Iceland for the very first time (it’s an acquired taste – believe me). But judge for your self: first Cameron …
dried_fish_anyonethen Colby:
106 Thingvellir - Colby trying dried fish… what else is there to say. The negative effects of too many veggies can also be seen with Christoph, whose two carrot vampire teeth leave Helen rather unimpressed:carrot vampireto be continued …

Bear Mountain Sign-up

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mystery_locationSome of you have talked to me or Jon about the upcoming Bear Mountain trip (see earlier post). To keep better track of all you interested guys I created an on-line form, which you can access here.
If you’d  like to go on the trip, please complete the form even if you have told us already in person.

To bring a little bit of excitement to your life
No, the picture at the top of this post is not a picture of Bear Mountain. The first one who tells me the correct location of the scene above will win a fabulous prize: one of the leftover ENVS T-shirts.
ENVS faculty cannot participate! For all you alumni who will probably read this post next month: The first correct alumni that arrives after the monthly digest goers out wins a T-shirt as well. Prizes are limited to T-shirts on-hand.

Fall 2013 – New England upland backpacking trip – Sage’s Ravine, Bear Mountain

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October 12-14, 2013
contacts/more info:
Christoph Geiss, Jon Gourley or Joan Morrison

Jon on Bear MountainLimited space available!  Priority will be given to ENVS majors/minors and new students considering the ENVS major.  Limited backpacking equipment is available from ENVS.

Three days/ two nights backpacking/hiking trip to the highest elevations in Connecticut in the southern Berkshires.  Topics will include:

  • Upland New England forest biomes
  • Geology of the Taconic mountain building event
  • Low impact back country camping/cooking.
  • Triple corner of MA, CT and NY…be in three states at once!
  • Highest point on Connecticut – guess what…it’s not the top of a mountain!!??

This year will be the first trip of the new ENVS fall field trip series.  We plan to lead a trip each fall that will feature a new location/ new environment.  Our future trips may explore coastal processes on Cape Cod or watershed management strategies as we paddle the Delaware water gap.   All trips will focus on relevant environmental/ecology/earth science topics as well as outdoor/backcountry living.  These trips will be a taste of what we do on our larger summer field trips.  The cost of this trip is free but you may need to purchase or borrow personal equipment such as backpacks, headlamps and proper clothing.

ENVS Students Test the Waters: Worldwide

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By guest blogger Joan Morrison:Once again, our majors have been called upon to conduct some serious testing of waters in China, Cambodia, and Laos, on the summer study abroad program “River Cities of Asia.”  Well, not called upon by the governments (not yet anyway!) but by professors leading our trip.  Renee, Sakile, Rose and Shaina can show you how it’s done and even look like they’re having fun testing the muddy Mekong!

Put Pollen in Their Place: On a Slide

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Maddie and Christoph Geiss went up North for a visit to Harvard Forest in Petersham, MA. Maddie got some one-on-one instructions on how to identify tricky and not-so-tricky pollen from Wyatt Oswald.
With only two scopes available, Christoph drew the short straw, had to leave them to their slides, and go for a walk, exploring the forest.
What a miserable way to spend a morning!  But, hey, if its for the good of our students we all suffer. Harvard Forest is great. Two short hiking paths teach you about land use history and forest evolution. The paths are lined by numerous experiments. The entire forest seems to be wired and labelled.
Which is probably just a sneaky way to show all our tax (NSF) dollars at work. The rest of the forest, away from the trails, is probably completely full of trees. :-) . Christoph Geiss, investigative reporter, will convince Maddie that she’ll definitely need some more help, return to Harvard Forest, sneak off the trail and work on some more conspiracy theories.
Hey, it was fun! I highly recommend a visit. If you go and read the signs or the trail guides you’ll even be able to tell whether this stone wall once surrounded a field or a pasture. How? Hey, I can’t give away all my secrets. Go – see for yourself!

 

Tuesday = McCookoutday

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By now most of our research students have left campus and August promises to be a quiet month. McCookout will therefore take a break and go on vacation until September. Come next Fall, however, McCookout will return in full force. Every Tuesday at noon we’ll meet in our (not so) new spot in the McCook parking lot to enjoy good food, including a dinosaur cake or two (it’s a potluck – so plan ahead! Or all we get is stale chips and some moldy leftover rolls) and good conversations. We’re all looking forward to seeing you in September, catch up on the news and enjoy some bratwurst and bean burgers.