21 Jul, 2015 Author: administrator
We are delighted that so many of our researchers have visited the site this summer. Here are a few highlights.
June 22 Living Observatory (LO) held a session with our principals to discuss our future path. After lunch, Alex lead a tour to introduce this group to Tidmarsh West. Based on lessons learned from the Tidmarsh Restoration site and Eel River, we begin to see the design for this portion of the property in our minds' eye.
Alex, Joe, Kate and Halsey climb to look over bogs
July 1 Edgar Franck, a student of Alan Christian at U Mass Boston, defends his Masters thesis. Nice work, Edgar. Now you have presented, you have a few more weeks to get that document finalized.
July 6 & 7 Tom Dimino and Sean McCanty of the U Mass Boston Freshwater Ecology Lab are on site to do the Summer sampling of invertebrates and a fish count. Claire Easterman, an intern in the plant nursery, joins their workshops. Claire will start at U Mass Amherst as an undergrad in the fall. Meanwhile Tom and Sean are raising money for their bio-diversity research on Experiment.com. Help them reach their goal by making a donation here.
Found: fresh water mussels in stream bed
July 6 Evan and I were present for the maiden voyage of Vasant's terrestrial sensing quad-copter. The mechanism can be controlled via a headset; images merge with the virtual Tidmarsh. The maiden voyage showed great promise even if cut short by unplanned control issues. The terrestrial sensing laboratorywas recently founded at the MIT Media Lab.
Physical and virtual merge
July 10 Brian Mayton, Gershon Dublon of the MIT Media Lab, volunteer Patrick O'Shea, Evan, Moses and I, all pitch in as Brian Spires leads a mission to extend the ComCast network.
Evan helps get the ditch witch out of trouble
Gershon and Brian explore the next locus for a sensory experience
July 17 & 18 David Boutt, a GeoHydrologist from U Mass Amherst joins his former student, Danielle Hare, and hubby Martin Briggs (USGS) as they measure the groundwater discharge rate of the big seep.described by Daniel et al in her thesis and resent papers. You can find more about Danielle's masters thesis here.
Doing the seep measurement shuffle
Christine Hatch (U Mass Amherst and DTS expert) explored the water content of peat across the property with her new student, Carrie. On Saturday, they were given a tour of the Green House by our botanists, Irina Kadis and Alexey Zinovjev.
Carrie shows off a peat core (cr: CHatch)
Irina give Carrie and Christine a tour
Mike Bove, founder of Object Based Media at the Media Lab, arrived with Arata and Valerio to install the first Live Object at the stump pile -- Alex you are the star! Eventually, Live Objects will allow visitors to tour the property, learn about the science and meet most of the Living Observatory and Restoration team.
Calculating the range of the Live Object?
We look forward to many more visits!