Field Studies - 2009
Daily Update
Students enrolled in the Integrative Sciences major do experiential learning in and out of the classroom. Students enrolled in Dr. Robert Furey’s Field Studies in Ecology course (INSC 335), for example, spent a week off-campus studying ecology, economy and conservation issue in the Chesapeake Bay. The students visited the ecologically rich, as well as historically and economically important sites in the region. The class stayed at Matoaka Cabins in St. Leonard, MD. “The hands-on research methods we introduced to the students and their close participation in different methodologies will lead them to a better understanding of the environment and the ways in which we understand it,” says Dr. Furey, associate professor of Integrative Sciences at the University. The students worked through complex ecological issues, develop the skills to evaluate and design simple experiments as well as present their findings, too.
Browse the links to the right to read a daily postcard from the students who took part in the program.
Questions about the major or Field Studies? Email Connect@HarrisburgU.edu or call 717.901.5101.
Day 1: July 12
We left the train station in Harrisburg following directions from the new GPS. Our travel from home to Calvert Co. was uneventful save for a side trip through Baltimore decided on by our robotic companion, Susan. We checked into the Matoaka Cabins just after 3 PM and rapidly unloaded the van for some relaxed exploration around the cliffs, bamboo and spider fields. We ate a late meal of Jenai’s hamburger helper made from scratch before deciding on placement of the spider grid. It’s a 10 x 10 meter grid this year so we should get some good numbers.
Day 2: July 13
We had a relatively early call for the Calvert Marine Museum research boat today with Ken and Laura. The weather was changing rapidly but with coffee anything is possible. We headed out to Barren Island and looked at the erosion problems of the bay, looking at the current size of Barren Island and noting the size reductions over the last 100 years of mapping. Invasive species, over use of ground water and global warming are causing the rapid reduction in the islands in the Bay. We seined in fields of submerges aquatic vegetation and pulled in pipefish, grass shrimp and blues crabs among a relatively diverse group of marine animals. We dropped otter trawls out the back of the boat on the return leg and pulled in masses of jellyfish and a few deep water fish: toad fish, hog chokers and rockfish. Unfortunately the heavy load of jellies acted as an early warning and many of the fish avoided our deep nets. But the weather held and the day remained sunny throughout. We had saka-saka for dinner – don’t ask what’s in it, just taste it first – before visiting the spider grid for the first night’s marking. We only found 3 spiders in our enhanced size grid and the evening was largely a bust for spider work, although we did have a red fox come watch us run around with flashlights held to our foreheads.
Day 3: July 14
This morning was slower than yesterday. We met up with Ken at Calvert Marine Museum again for a behind the scene’s tour of the research center. M They have been working on the captive rearing of skates and rays at CMM for a few years now and they have these animals flourishing in all life stages. The newest program is the captive rearing of Sea Nettles, and although they have not yet succeeded in a complete life cycle, they have improved the understanding of these animals quite a bit. The paleontology labs are just next-door and we visited them just after, seeing the fossils from different epochs associated with deposits in Calvert Co and then the comparative osteology collection to identify bones and ancestors’’ bones. We were fortunate this afternoon to be allowed to visit Scientist Cliffs, which is a fossil rich area of the Bay but privately owned and difficult to gain access. Tiger beetles swarmed over the sand while we examined millions of years worth of strata and collected fossils at the edge of the surf.
Day 4: July 15
Our awaited land hike brought us to the Calvert Cliffs State Park today. The park has a particular topography that starts at high ground and follows several trails down to the edge of the Bay. There are several different plant communities to see on the way, dry pine woods, hardwood forest and low wetlands maintained by a beaver-built lake. We got quite familiar with some toads and lizards, and many aquatic insects. We found a new trail on the return leg to the van, one that seems to have been built recently. We had our first recapture tonight on the grid. Let the computations begin!
Day 5: July 16
Our day off for basic chores and alone time. No beach walks for our crew. They opted for an afternoon showing at the movies while Nic and I worked on the daily power point presentations and data uploads at a wifi site. Yes we drank coffee, a lot of coffee. Although the afternoon was free time, our evening remained the same: a lecture of the day, and data collection on the spider grid. We also did a night hike in the bamboo forest. The paw paw, a largely ignored or forgotten indigenous fruit, were hanging heavy in the trees but unfortunately were not ripe enough to eat.
Day 6: July 17
The northernmost cypress swamp here in the east is not far from our Matoaka Cabin. We visited the Battle Creek Cypress Swamp this afternoon and took a hike through the cypress trees on the raised boardwalk. Normally there is standing water throughout the swamp, but there was little to be seen save for some meandering creeks. The ground remained muddy. Animal footprints, mostly raccoon and deer, were everywhere. The swamp is shaded and there are frogs and birds calling all around. A family with small kids followed us in but after they passed the swamp became quite wild. We took another hike into the woods adjacent to the swamp and came across a sharecropper’s home built in the 1940s. It’s abandoned now, but the fallow fields and the house remain recognizably intact. Our field work continued at Flag Pond where we had been privy to inside information about the whereabouts of some fossil whale bones. We looked. We found shards. Who can what they came from? We BBQed tonight and made burgers and roasted corn. Best meal so far.
Day 7: July 18
After a week of naturalist sites, we visited the Pawtuxet Naval Aviation Museum. The museum has exhibits from the entire history of aviation, although concentrating on military history. Since this was the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, there were Apollo oriented exhibits and quite a bit on Apollo XIII. Walter Cronkite’s voice was part of the historical footage we saw there, later that same day we learned he had died. Remaining with history of the region, we continued down the peninsula to Point Lookout, the site of a Union Civil War POW camp. All that remains to this day is a monument to the Confederate dead and a pot used to make stew for the POWs. We talked about the Civil War and Lincoln’s strategies. Our final night was spent at the base of the cliffs around a bonfire. We made smores and told a few ghost stories under the crescent moon.
Day 8: July 19
Our final day. We were up and cleaned and out of the cabin in an hour. The van packed better on the way on than on the way out, even if we had used up supplies. The last thing we did at Matoaka was take down the grid after 6 days of data collection. We ate lunch at the Kingfisher before leaving Calvert Co, and the waitress coincidentally showed us to the same table the class ate at last year, making a tradition for HU. Coffee and gone from the beach after making final arrangements to return in August for some live fish prepared for use by the Calvert Marine Museum labs. It was a great trip and these guys were the best note takers in 15 years.