iUTAH Undergraduate iFellows

 

Week 2 Recap

May 23-27, 2016

 

Joydino Beyale

This week I was able to learn more in the lab, the tools and the skills that was instructed and demonstrated.  I also worked with a fellow worker Kaisa and Mitch, another iFellow, to help and experiment soil sampling.  Each day I am learning more in the lab and out in the field collecting data.

Heather Bottelberghe

This week we met with Tommy a graduate student in the GIS/Remote Sensing lab who showed us how to work with an Infrared (IR) imagery software. Maggi Kraft a graduate student in USU's ACWA Lab used a drone to record thermal IR video of the Swaner Preserve in Park City, Utah. Andrew Hackett and I will process the video to find specific frames that we can combine to make a mosaic. We will georeference the thermal IR mosaic using ground control GPS points that are visible on the images. The thermal IR videos were really exciting to watch, I cannot wait to start creating the mosaic!

 

On Friday, Andrew and I began documenting the locations of street gutters in Logan City that are being used to convey secondary water sources to homes so that people can use it to irrigate their lawns. I was glad to finally see first hand how the water is diverted and delivered to people’s lawns and gardens. Some people use sand bags to reroute the water flow and flood it into their yards. Others have a "gate" that when opened allows the water to flow into a canal or ditch in their yard that they can then use to flood their yard or to connect to a pump for sprinklers. Our goal is to map out all of the streets in the urbanized Cache Valley that are used to deliver secondary water to residential land.

 

 

 

 

 

Katelyn Boyer

Monday was the second cohort session in Logan, Utah. We learned how to design our posters for the program and learned the requirements for WATS 4600. For the rest of the week I worked with the snow data that was already collected, using it to create maps and figures in the ArcMap program. The maps that I am creating will be used for my poster and will give me a better understanding of the research project I will be working on this summer. I also worked on the intro and methods for my research paper.

 

 

 

 

Todd Brown

This week I worked on preparing data for the wash module that Ayman Al Afifi has been creating. I specifically 1) processed each transect that we took in 2015 with the ADCP so we could easily see all the data and the difference between them. 2) Finished collecting all of the river widths for the Confluence and Morton site. 3) Found the residual of flow and stage from our actual readings, and the distance made good readings. We will be testing the data soon to determine how the difference in flow or river width changes overall water use.

 

 

Darcie Christensen

This week started off up at Utah State with another cohort meeting. The meeting was very helpful in establishing best practices in research and in helping us know what is expected for the final products of this project. The rest of the week was spent a lot like last week since my mentors were both out of town. I did a lot of literature review and began compiling the background and proposed methods for the project. The results came back from our isotope readings last week and were good, so the rest of the plant samples also need to be weighed and read. I ran into some issues with scale scheduling, so a lot of time next week will be dedicated to taking care of those samples so analysis can be done on nitrogen percentage in each of the respective plants. Pratibha will also be back, so we plan on going through existing data sets to make sure I know what data has already been taken and how it relates to the research I will be doing.

 

Georgie Corkery

For the Hydroponic Lighting experiment, Sara and I set up the lights in our indoor space as well as reseeded our kale plants because they died - most likely because they were initially too close to the light fixtures. Together we also created a spreadsheet and decided how and what data we wanted to record. We have been watering daily since, and adding nutrients as needed.

 

On Wednesday we saw that there were gnats on our soil blocks and rock wool. Gnats reproduce quickly and eat the roots of plants. So, to nip the problem in the bud, I set up a on the plants to prevent the gnats from staying on the starts and laying more eggs. On Thursday the gnats were almost gone so we turned off the fan and put out sticky traps and carnivorous plants.

 

Danny and I created a potential design for the Home Hydroponic Kit, made a tentative budget, and purchased a pump, a tube for the pump, a light, a shelving unit, and a basin. These materials put together will be our first step in the design process to see how everything fits together. Next week we plan on setting it up, testing it out, troubleshooting, and looking into different materials to use for the end product as well as an instruction sheet on how to use it.

 

For the Urban Agriculture Farm project I connected with Frog Bench farm and plan on touring and discussing project details with them next week Thursday!

 

 

 

Cynthia Elliott

On Saturday we went to the Living Heritage Festival to test our questionnaire. The festival was awesome and we got some great feedback on what could make the questionnaire better. On Monday we had the second iFellows cohort session. I was able to take some great notes on storing data, as well as presentation skills. During the next couple days I read more articles pertaining to our research topic. On Thursday we adjusted the surveys and made sure they worked on the iPads (they didn't). We finally got them up and running by updating the app (always update your apps, folks)! Taya, Luis, Dr. Brunson, and I went to a festival in West Salt Lake and had a table set up to talk to locals about the Jordan River area. A lot of people seemed to be very interested in the topic, so that was good to see! 

 

 

Andrew Hackett

This has been an exciting and busy week! I was able to help Maggi Kraft from USU's ACWA Lab collect and edit remote sensing data, and gained a lot of practical experience using GIS and managing metadata. Our lab also began work towards processing infrared imagery collected from the Swaner EcoCenter to build a mosaic for the area's wetlands, and my iFellow lab partner Heather Bottelberghe and I spent some time in the streets of Logan identifying urban areas that use curb delivered secondary water.

 

 

 

 

 

Greta Hamilton

This week started at Utah State University (USU) in Logan. The iFellow meeting presented us with insightful information regarding posters, presentations, and papers. Additionally, the group participated in hilarious improvisational scenarios to effectively communicate future presentations. The next few days were at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo. While at BYU, we prepped sample bags for our 24-hour field study that will be coming sometime in the next week or two as soon as the weather settles down. We monitor SNOTEL and USGS water data sites daily to close in on a date for the study. Brian walked me through a complete mercury run, from sample prep to the machine analysis. The end of the week had us out in the field for our weekly overland flow and Provo River sampling.

 

 

 

 

 

Stacy Henderson

This week I finished up my Human Subject CITI training.  I also continued to read the research published by my mentors.  One of my mentors started preparing data she is going to have me work with and hopefully I'll begin working with that next week.

 

Rebecca Lee

After another informative cohort session this week, the week continued with some more literature review so that we could finalize the method for our project. On Wednesday we went and took water samples from two points along the Provo River in order to begin DNA extraction on them. We also learned more about and helped with the GAMUT flow rate measurements and climate stations. Back at the lab, I was able to filter our water samples to capture microbes and extract DNA from those filters. It is exciting to start all of the data collection and research that we have spent the last two weeks preparing for!

 

 

 

 

Gabriela Martinez

This week I worked on finishing the introduction portion of my poster/final paper and I got started on the methodology portion of it. I was also able to create a "to-do list" for our research that outlines everything we need to accomplish before we can start interviewing people and gathering data out in the field. Every single thing I have done this week has been a learning experience, especially when it comes to how to write and organize a real research paper. I have to be honest, a lot of what I am doing is not only very new to me, but it is also very challenging and I am loving it. I honestly feel like everything that I am learning through the program will help me become more confident in my abilities as a researcher and ultimately make me a better student.

 

 

Mitchell Steele

This week I had the opportunity to start testing the V-Notched weir that we designed last week. We are testing to see if we can use a pressure transducer to measure the water level as it goes through the weir to measure discharge. I also went and took soil samples at one of our areas to have it sampled for arsenic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shanae Tate

It has been a great week here in the Soils Department at Utah State.  

 

I have learned about the Water Retention Curve, which is also known as the Soil Water Characteristic.  This is essentially the basis of all of soil physics, but I didn't realize it was that essential for everything in this field.  It describes the relationship between water content and energy. 

 

I'm super glad we talked about data management in our Cohort Session on Monday.   I've dealt with a lot of data this week from our water retention curve experiment and also from the GAMUT soil moisture sensors.  We are strategizing a plan for the re-calibration of the soil water content sensors and trying to find the shift that occurred with a firmware update last fall.  I have learned a lot about organizing data and I believe there is a great future in data management ahead of me.

 

In other news, Chris and I took some flow measurements at the aquatic sites on Main Street.  We basically lowered a 75-pound hunk of metal shaped like a torpedo into the water.  The torpedo was so heavy so that it stayed in place in the water, allowing the sensor to measure the velocity of the river.  The velocity and the other measurements we took will be used to calculate the discharge of the river.   

 

 

 

Luis Vidal

I spent the first part of the week finishing readings. The readings helped prepare me for the upcoming surveys and understanding the methods and purpose of surveys in research. In anticipation of the Sorenson CommUNITY Fair on Thursday we made our final corrections to our survey after last weeks pre-test. We collected our first results at the fair and afterwards discussed other possible questions we could apply to our research. 

 

 

Lily Wetterlin

This week was all about composing my research proposal. I worked closely with my two graduate mentors, La’Shaye and Carolina, to choose my research question, hypotheses, introduction and work plan. In the process of forming my proposal I had an introduction to GIS and the program ArcMap. With ArcMap I was able to upload a file of trees in the Salt Lake Valley with the following data: species, trunk diameter, condition, plot residence and location. With this data I was able to narrow down the trees that I will be sampling for my research. I will be sampling the three most common species to the Salt Lake Valley: Norway Maple, Linden, and Green Ash. My question is to determine whether the size of an urban plot affects the nitrogen availability and water source for trees.

 

During the weekly Urban Ecology lab meeting I was able to present my proposal to the lab group and my mentor, Diane Pataki. It went very well and I received very helpful feedback on what was well planned and what could be improved. I am excited for the progression of the project in the following weeks.

 

Adam Whalen

Whereas last Friday my overall place in the iUTAH project was murky, this week it became much clearer.

 

I kicked off the week by having another amazing cohort session, this time up at Utah State University. While I could have done without the long drive, the speakers and information presented made it more than worth it. I paid acute attention to Jeff Horsburgh (USU) presentation on proper data management as it relates directly to my research. Scott Bates (USU) opened my eyes to the intricacies and nuances of giving a poster presentation. After a comical “improvisation for scientists” session aimed at enhancing our professional interpersonal communication skills, I said farewell to my iFellow’s until June 13th when we will meet up again, this time down south at Brigham Young University.

 

As for the rest of my week, it saw me officially kicking off the meat of my research. I had an incredibly productive meeting with my mentors, Meaghan and Sara, and finally got set-up in an office space that I can (somewhat) call my own, it is shared with two other people after all. Apart from further familiarizing myself with the iUTAH survey data, something I began last week, I gathered countless pieces of secondary evidence on a number of water issues. These secondary data sets will serve as comparisons to the aforementioned iUTAH surveys that were conducted last year. While I may not have any exciting conclusions to draw just yet about where Utah compares to the nation and possibly even other states, I will say that I’m well on my way to finding them!

 

With a great deal of hard work, and copious amounts of coffee, I’m more confident than ever that my research is on the right track.

 

Sandra Udy (Young)

This week I began working on preparing agar cups to be brought out to the field next week. This involved heating up water and adding the agar. The solution was autoclaved and a nutrient amendment was added. This was separated into little cups and glass discs were placed on top. Once these were cooled I siliconed these to an L bar and zip-tied them down. This went way better than I was expecting, especially since my mentor was out of town for a conference. I did learn that zip-ties are harder to use than I remembered. I also realized that the autoclave is a super cool machine. I am excited to go out to the field next week.