Recent Participants
Jessie Moravek
Junior, Environmental Science and EPC
I participated in the Field School in the summer of 2013 as a hydrology intern at Ashley National Forest in northeastern Utah. I spent ten weeks hiking around the forest taking water quality samples of springs and fens, in order to help the Forest Service manage groundwater resources for cattle and oil development. Not only did I experience working in the field, I learned the importance of effective communication between scientists and the community. I had a lot of fun, too- I went on a whitewater rafting trip, backpacked in the national forest, and visited Arches National Park. Ultimately, the Field School gave me a better understanding of how science and research can be applied to management issues.
Brendan McManus
Senior, History and EPC
This summer I worked at Golden Gate National Recreation Area, in their Environmental and Safety Programs Office as a Research Intern. While there, I wrote a sustainability newsletter for the park and also worked on their SharePoint website. In the sustainability newsletter, I wrote about the solar panels on Alcatraz Island (and even got to go there!), where they have over 950 panels on the roof, which are hidden from view to protect the island’s historical preservation. I also wrote about Alcatraz Cruises, which take you out to the island and have solar panels, wind panels, and run on hybrid-diesel fuel (instead of gasoline). For the SharePoint website, it is an Intranet site which GGNRA uses to communicate, so the Environmental and Safety Programs Office needed to update their site, which is what I did. While in California, I visited Yosemite NP on July 4th weekend, I also went to Monterey and Pebble Beach Golf Club, went on a whale watch (and saw 10 whales!), and did so many other incredible things. It was an amazing time to say the least, and I am sad that I had to leave, but I can’t thank the people at the Environmental Field School enough, for making this happen!
Lauren Wustenberg
Senior, Environmental Sciences, EPC, ISEN
Thanks to the support of the Undergraduate Research Office, ISEN, and the Field Museum, I was able to spend two months of this past summer in the Peruvian Amazon studying sustainable management of the Astrocaryum chambirapalm. Fibers from newly formed leaves of the chambira are processed and dyed to serve as the base material for natural handcrafts in the rural communities along the Amazon River system in Peru, Ecuador, and parts of Brazil and Colombia. My study was split between conducting interviews with artisans working with chambira as well as studies in the purmas, or secondary forest plots managed by families in the communities, to assess the demand for and natural abundance of chambira fiber in three small communities along the Tahuayo River. In the forests, the large palms covered in spikes are the chambira palms that I was studying and the cords that delineated the borders of each sample plot in the study can be seen.