Brainstorming Plant ID in Disturbed Areas of Barrington Headwaters

This morning, Laura helped us to understand the relationships between Native vs. Contemporary Education systems.  We also explored the ways that rituals, as defined by Dolores LaChapelle, influence each system.  The Venn Diagram, which always helped when I was a pupil (I'm going to start using that word more), was a great way to grasp these connections.  Another, less obvious advantage of the Venn Diagram is that is can help people, especially children, to realize that the world is not black and white.  There are often gray areas, and these are represented by the varying degrees of overlap on the Venn Diagram.  Just because two systems are different, they may share some characteristics as well.  Different schools of thought can even collaborate to help us with our pedagogy statements, and these compare and contrast exercises get my brain in the right mode for this work.  Thanks Laura!

Later on we split into groups to work on proposals for our research projects.  The research question and procedure required some intense critical thinking, but I think we each contributed some solid ideas for a fairly cohesive and flowing research project.  The challenge was keeping the scope manageable enough to study in the short 4-day timeframe that we have.  We had to answer additional questions outside of our main question, but these must be limited so that they do not open up to entirely new projects.  I think we succeeded - for now.  We'll see how these ideas materialize in the field tomorrow, but for now it feels good to have a direction that everybody in our group agrees on.

Below is a map of the Barrington Headwaters as it borders surrounding property.  The [faint] purple line is the boundary that we must work within.  We chose various sites that are areas of disturbance, both natural and man-made.  We also decided that within each area, there would be two plots: one sunny, and one shady.  This would allow for us to see how distribution of invasive plants compares to that of natives and exotics.

We divided up which materials we would bring and which ones we would need to borrow from the University.  I can't wait to bring my camera out there and get some beautiful photos of the Barrington Headwaters flora.

It was helpful to look at projects from past summer projects on the Barrington Headwaters to see how our final product should look, what it should cover, and how to make it interesting while keeping it informative.  We have some big shoes to fill, but I am confident that by the end of our project we will come up with an informative set up data that can be easily navigated and aesthetically enjoyed.