Presenting: The 2022 Edition of the “Week in the Life” of a Highlands Field Site (HFS) student!
Last year, an Institute of the Environment (IE) student led everyone around their week in the life of a UNC student at the Highlands Biological Field Site. While a lot of things are the same from the Fall 2021 year, some things have changed. Like our weekly schedule and where we live! We are still taking the same classes, but the order of the classes during the week has shifted slightly. We are also a bigger group of 15 students compared to last year’s 12, so we moved from the Valentine House to the Cottages (For more information about the different housing options provided, make sure to check out the Highlands Biological Station website)! Learning to live with 15 other people definitely took some getting used to, but since being here, we have made the Highlands Biological Station our home away from home.
Monday: Microplastic Monday! (ENEC 698)
Bleary-eyed and slightly shivering from the cold, the IE students start their week off by working on their Capstone project from 9 AM to 5 PM along with Professor Jason Love and Dr. Jerry Miller from Western Carolina University. Our Capstone project builds on the work completed by last year’s IE students, but our focus is in a slightly different direction. We aim to assess the concentrations, sources, and movements of microplastics in the Cullasaja watershed through three main experimental methods: baseflow vs. streamflow concentration comparison, trash transects and analysis, and microplastic concentration dependency upon watershed stream order. We have completed data collection and are now in the analysis and writing stages. We started our analysis of our data and continued writing our final paper.
After finishing our long Capstone day, some students and I decompressed in our kitchen, which also serves as our living room. Then, I went into my room and finished my homework for my Human Impacts Class and Cultural History Seminar, which consisted of reading two different books: The Wild East and Adventures in the Anthropocene.
Tuesday: Human Impacts Class (ENEC 256) and Cultural History Class (ENEC 204)
On Tuesday, we start with our Human Impacts class, which runs from 9 AM to 1 PM. This class is taught by Dr. James Costa for the first half of the semester and Dr. Rada Petric for the second half of the semester. Sometimes the class is lecture-based, while other times it is discussion-based. For today, it was a book discussion on the first few chapters of Adventures in the Anthropocene by Gaia Vince. We cozied up on some couches with blankets, donuts, and tea to discuss the latest chapters. After this class, we have our lunch break, which can be a little chaotic at times with 15 people in the kitchen, but somehow we have made it work. At 3 PM, our Cultural History (ENEC 204) class starts. This class is taught by Professor Jason Love and is a one-hour seminar-style class where we learn and discuss the history of the southern Appalachian region. Today, we discussed the last few chapters of the book, The Wild East by Dr. Margaret Brown.
After the long day of class, some IE students decided to go to the library to check out some books to read in the following weeks. The Hudson Library is located in downtown Highlands and only about a 10 minute walk from the Station! It has an extensive selection of books and is also a great place to do homework.
In Highlands and its surrounding towns (Franklin, Sylva, and Cashiers), there are many different things to do to decompress from a long school day, like thrifting, going to bookstores, our weekly Franklin Walmart trip, hiking on trails or to waterfalls, and eating at numerous delicious restaurants. On this day, some IE students and I piled into a car and drove 35 minutes down the mountain to Franklin, NC to go thrifting. We stopped by our beloved Franklin Goodwill to look for and buy those hidden gems only found at thrift stores. Afterwards, exhausted from the retail therapy, we drove to the Cookout in Franklin to get much needed milkshakes and cheese bites. We ended the day by driving 35 minutes back up the mountain for a calm night of finishing homework and card games.
Wednesday: Remote Sensing Class (ENEC 479) and Science Communication Class (ENEC 264)
On Wednesday, we started with our Remote Sensing class (ENEC 479), which occurs from 9 AM to 12 PM. This class is taught by four different teachers: Dr. Rada Petric, Mr. Troy Walton, Dr. Gary Wein and Mr. Brian Naess. This course views the impacts on the landscape from different perspectives, using remote sensing and digital data. Our project for this class examined the differences in temperature patterns across cities in North Carolina from 2001 to 2021. In this class, we learned about drones and remote sensing, how to do statistical analysis in RStudio, and how to manage data using ArcGIS Pro. For class today, we worked on our final project by using RStudio and coding in R.
From 1 PM to 4 PM, we have our next class, Science Communication or ENEC 264. This class is taught by three professors: Ms. Lilly Knoepp, Mr. Brent Martin and Dr. Rada Petric. This class taught us a lot about how to communicate our research in ways that the public will understand through writing poems, short stories, and conducting interviews. This focused on William Bartram’s writing and his detailed accounts of the flora and fauna found in the Appalachian mountains. For our final project in this class, we had to interview an expert in a field of our interest (relating to the southern Appalachians) and, using the interview, create a piece of science literature. I chose to interview Cara-Lee Langston, a forager, herbalist, and nutrition educator. She also is the owner of Wildcraft Kitchen, which aims to connect people to the natural environment and to promote health and wellness through local and wild foods. Using her interview, I decided to create an infographic on edible foods that can be foraged in the southern Appalachian mountains.
After class, I decided to go to the Highlands Recreation Center for a quick swim at the pool. At the Recreation Center, you can work out, swim at the pool, play tennis, play basketball, play pickleball, and much more. It is also only a quick 15 minute walk from the Highlands Biological Station, so I tend to use their facilities quite often. After the swim, I went back to the Station to finish my homework.
Thursday: Individual Research Projects Day! (ENEC 395)
Each week, we end it with our Individual Research Projects Class (ENEC 395). This class occurs on Thursday (9 AM to 5 PM) and Friday (9 AM to 2 PM). We have eight different research projects studying bats, salamanders, dragonflies, small mammals, hemlocks, laurel, and Motus towers. My research topic is on the detectability rate of Motus towers using Drones. If you want to learn more about our research projects, follow us on Instagram (@highlands.ie) and Twitter (@HighalndsIE21). Today was packed full of coding in R using RStudio and editing our final paper draft. Most of us haven’t written a research paper or coded in R before, but with the support and help from our mentors, Dr. Rada Petric and Jason Love, we were able to troubleshoot any of our problems and continue working on our papers. Today, we found statistically significant data, which was very exciting for us!
Friday: Field Work Friday! (Day Two of Individual Research Projects)
Friday, more lovingly known as Field Work Friday, was unfortunately not filled with field work. During the first half of the semester, many of the groups went out into the field to collect data. However, since the semester is wrapping up, we are all busy working on our final projects. My research partner and I holed ourselves up in a Coker Lab office to crank out our final paper. This day consisted of coding in R and editing our paper draft. The draft of our paper was due at 10 PM that day, so we worked hard to get it ready to be turned in.
After the long day of coding and writing, all the IE students went to the ice skating rink to celebrate turning our papers in, and also to try our hand at skating. Some were naturals, but I, with no balance or grace, stayed glued to the wall or the Skate Helper provided by the rink. Nevertheless, it was a very enjoyable experience and one that will be repeated in the future. Tired and hungry after skating, we decided to drive the 35 minutes down to our much-loved Franklin Cookout for some more milkshakes, cheese bites, and quesadillas. Our trip to Cookout was a much needed reward and concluded our jam-packed week of classes.
Hope you enjoyed the "Week in the Life" following a Highlands IE Student!
-KW