30 Mar, 2014 Author: administrator
Our 2nd Annual Tidmarsh Farms - Living Observatory Research Summit was held at the MIT Media Lab on February 28th. The lively day long event allowed 45 participants to share views and contribute to our focus topic: "What Stories will the Landscape Tell? Tools to Document and Experience a Changing Landscape". In the morning session, we reviewed changes we anticipate, questions that seem promising to explore, and a low-power sensor network that will allow us to monitor changes that can help answer these questions. The afternoon session focused on how the data may be revealed in the visitor experience.
Alex Hackmen of DER kicked off the morning session off with an update on the design (see our March 17 post). Alex characterized the overall goals for the restoration allow us to modify the landscape that has been shaped "in service to a highly managed monoculture [cranberries]" into "an evolving mosaic of habitats "in service to critters".
Danielle Hare, Masters student in the Department of Geosciences at U Mass -Amherst, presented some of her findings on the groundwater-peat interface across the formerly farmed landscape. Using results from Differential Temporal Sensing and Infra-Red imaging, Danielle hypothesized a relationship between slope in the peat bowls and groundwater upwellings. This work has played an important role in the design of the proposed new stream channel.
Brian Mayton, a PhD student in M.I.T.'s Responsive Environment Group, closed the morning session describing the low-power sensor network that he has been designing. In this architecture, multiple low power sensor nodes push temperature, humidity, light, barometric pressure and other data to servers located at MIT at regular intervals. The nodes can be augmented with additional sensors as required for a particular exploration of microclimates or carbon sequestration. The presentation challenged Summit participants to think not only about the questions they would like to ask, but also how to space the nodes effectively, and what other sensors should be designed.
In the break out sessions that followed, participants considered 5 habitat types that exist or will evolve following the restoration. Session leaders together with self chosen participants roamed the lab to find a comfortable spot (shown in images below). After the earlier presentations, the conversations were animated, interactive and allowed a wealth of ideas to bubble up.
Left: setting for Red Maple Swamp discussion; leader: Alex Hackman; respondent: Danielle Hare
Right: Transitional Grassland and Forrest discussion: leaders Jeff Collins, Ma Audubon, and Gershon Dublon; respondent: Casey Shetterly
Above: Stream Channel discussion: leader: Eric Hutchins; respondent: Sean McCanty (above)
Bog Surface and Atlantic White cedar Swamp - Nick Nelson; respondent: Brian Mayton (no image)
Above: Freshwater Marsh: Kate Ballantine and Franz Ingelfinger respondent: Edgar Franck
David Boutt lead the wrap up discussion in which each group reported back. While more discussions are needed to define how best to follow the long term restoration impact, a few core concepts surfaced including: what the wetting up of the marsh will do to the different hydrologic flow paths that exist today; and as the water spreads out, how we will we measure the increased microbial interaction.
During the lunch break everyone was encouraged to review posters that Danielle Hare, Edgar Frank, Sean McCanty and Ben Eck had develop for the event. These have been archived along with the formal presentations.
Following lunch, Bob Wilbur, Director of Land Conservation at Mass Audubon (above), provided a short introduction to the organization, its goals, and its interest in Tidmarsh Farms as a future Mass Audubon Sanctuary.
The afternoon began with presentations suggest different design approaches that can be incorporated in the visitor experience. Judy Perry demonstrated a narrative interactive game platform, Tale Blazer, developed by M.I.T.'s Education Arcade. The platform allows one to construct interactive role playing games around specific learning objectives. Mass Audubon's education team is already developing a game for their Drumlin Farms Sanctuary. Catherine d'Ignazio presented Babbling Brook, an interactive installation that morphs real time sensor data about the rivers stage and flow into a computer generated speech. Emanating from a flower sculpture, the quirky, fun, funny persona speaks to no one in particular but draws the attention of passers-by's to the state of the brook. Finally, Gershon Dublon, another PhD candidate in the Responsive Environments Group at the Media Lab, shared his thinking about future augmented experiences in which a system would respond to the state of the visitor's attention. The goal of this work is to display sensor data as an extension of ourselves, such that we are not commanding it, but rather it is bringing us an experience in the "right" moment.
Judy Perry and Josh Sheldon (left) Catherine D'Ignazio (right)
Gershon Dublon presents "Being There" (below)
In the break out sessions that followed, participants focused on: Funding for Science Research, the Music of Tidmarsh, or Community Building. The community building session was led by Jeffery Warren and Don Blair of Public Lab who have grown an amazing organization whose goal is to bring together technologists and activists. The idea is to develop affordable tools that can be used on the ground by activists. Participants in this session articulated different groups who share an interest in realizing our vision for a future nature sanctuary and Living Observatory. These groups include direct abutters, the local community of Manomet and Plymouth, visitors to Manomet and Plymouth, researchers who are interested in assessing the impact of the restoration. How do we learn on and with a changing landscape? What should be our next steps in engaging the local community? How do we put forward out goals in a way that allows us to identify and grow a participatory community?
Kris Scopinich, Education Director at Mass Audubon's Drumlin Farms Wildlife Sanctuary, led an animated wrap up discussion. Each topic generated lively discussion. Kris articulated the excitement of the "pro-active" quality that allows us to layer restoration ecology, education, visitor experience, with technology to help us discover, engage with the community and bring intention to our messaging about climate change.
Charis Durrance and Christina Hatch discuss tree sensors; Kris Scopinich frames a point.
The Summit ended with a request to fill in a questionaire, a tour of the Media Lab for participants and a cool brew at Meadhall.
We end this post with a sincere thanks to all who participated. This Summit became a real working session, allowing us to share the research that has been accomplished to date and to think together about the future of how to grow the Living Observatory. Well done all!
A special thanks to Hyun Yeul Lee for the snazzy red tee-shirt and to Anthony Reiber for an Atlantic White Cedar tree.