As I sit here writing this post in my little cottage dorm room, I can’t help but to feel a little bit sad. We have eight more days until we wrap up our research projects which will officially end the semester. Don’t get me wrong, being done with our big research projects will be a weight off of our shoulders, but at least for myself, I’m not quite ready to leave Highlands Biological Station. It has been the most special semester I have had in my career as a tar heel and our time here seems to have gone by too quickly.
I remember arriving here in August not knowing what I was getting myself into. As I first drove up the windy road from Franklin (which we now know as Mario Kart road), excitement and nerves were running through my body. I was really looking forward to finally learning about the natural environment that I grew up in, but was a little scared of the whole “research project” idea. But after the first few days on a field trip to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, this nervousness quickly dwindled away and never came back; I knew that this was the place I needed to be during my fall semester of my senior year.
Through hands-on learning, each week seemed to teach me something new. We went on multiple field trips throughout the semester learning about the interesting and unique biodiversity that is found here in the Southern Appalachian region. Purchase knob, Roan
Mountain, a kayaking trip down the Chattooga, the list of memories seems endless. This kind of learning doesn’t occur in a classroom and to be out in the woods for class is just a special opportunity that I am glad I was able to take. You really feel like you are a part of this nature filled world when you can see, in-person, the things that one normally views in a textbook.
Our kayaking trip down the Chattooga river (AKA the Deliverance River)
I said earlier that the whole research project prospect was scary to me in the beginning. I had never really done real research in the field before and walking into a project with no prior experience is always scary. But my research project turned out to be one of my favorite parts of this semester. I am a member of the Alarka Laurel crew, who conducted a study on the effects of climate change on Red Spruce in this region. We spent the majority of our individual research time in the woods crawling through unbelievably thick mountain laurel. Although it was very hard at times, our experience in the Alarka Laurel basin was satisfying and even peaceful. Our field site was about an hour and a half away from the station, so my team and I would drive down on Thursday morning, do field work all day, and then camp out in the basin so we could wake up on Friday and do it all again. These nights spent camping were therapeutic, as it was a way to step out of society and soak in the moments that we had while crawling through the mountain laurel earlier that day. We even had an amazing encounter with a black bear during our time doing research which is, again, not something that you can experience in a classroom.
The Alarka crew walking through a surprisingly open part of the basin.
Outside of the academic portions of the semester, I got to create friendships with 15 fellow students who were strangers just four short months ago. Through movie nights, disc golf, Tuesday night sports, etc. we all became like a little highlands family. We probably never would have met one another if it wasn’t for this program, but I am glad I got to spend this semester getting to know each and every one of them.
So really I am writing this blog post to share my appreciation for what this semester has given me. To the station, Jason, Rada, Jim, Noa, and everyone else who has shared this experience with me, thank you for truly making this semester a semester to remember.
- Carter Patterson
An example of the beautiful views that we got to see during our time in this program. This was taken on our field trip to Purchase Knob in the Smokies.