Weeks 1 & 2...The Beginning.

Very excited to be here in the REU program at Peninsula College...It feels like the first time to really apply what I have been learning in school and get a chance to dive right into it. Two weeks into the program I can already tell it is going to be a really good opportunity to research and learn.

By the end of the first week, I was wearing my first wet suit and going into the Strait for seining and snorkeling for fish inventories working on the WDFW’s look at the Elwha near shore. I overcame my fear of the ocean quickly by jumping into a small boat and going out into the surf, but the 10 ft. waves were too strong for us to row out into, so we worked from the shore. None the less the shore based work was a great experience and the water was a bit too dangerous/turbid for snorkeling so we bagged that. It was probably the biggest “first week of school” event I have ever had.

After learning about the different projects we can work on in the REU program I am working on two projects. The primary project I am working on is led by Dwight Barry of PC. We are working with a snow/hydrology model developed by NASA that was designed to work for the Dungeness watershed, but will be working to tweaking it so it will work on the Elwha watershed. This involves visiting sites in the field to collect soil data, then as snow falls we will be taking measurements of the snow pack and along the snowline. Things sound a bit hazy so far, but that is about the gist of it.

The other project I am involved in will be an extension of the WDFW near shore project and will be working with Jon Warrick of the USGS to map beach sediments in the study areas. It is going to be a “part time” project so it will not be as often. One of the big perks to it is that I will get to go out on the boat as we did last Friday and do more boat based seining, so I get to hop into a dry suit on occasion and get into the water throughout the winter and spring.

Also, my roommate Ben is working on an independent project with professors from WWU to try and reconstruct past salmon returns in the Elwha by looking at tree rings. I will get to go tromping through the woods with him to take tree core samples.

All in all lots of opportunities here. I will have a chance to use and grow my geography/GIS skills within the projects I am working on so I will get to stick with geography even though I am not taking any geography classes, but get to expand into relating fields as well.

I hope this blog will be a good window for friends/family/instructors to see what I am doing out here on the Peninsula.