Nathan Schaeffer
Natural Resources
6/4/2015
Our Natural Resources class has been given permission to go out to East Elwha Beach which is only for the tribal property, so its a huge thing for us. We do our studies on that stretch of beach and also on West Elwha Beach. We look for dead birds, marine debris, and kelp rocks. I focused on marine debris.
My special project was to combine all the data from the present to 2011 and graph it to see if we could detect changes before and after the dam was taken out. I presented my data to the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribal Council on June 1, 2015. The graph shows weight and number of items collected every time we went out to do our studies.
As a student researcher, I prefer being outside in the field collecting data rather than sitting in a classroom. It was challenging presenting in front of the tribal council. I was scared at first to even speak, but once everyone else went, it wasn't that bad. Everyone was super nice and understanding and actually cared about what we were saying. I think all together it was a great experience and an honor to tell the council what we found. The best part was being thanked by them. It showed that they appreciated what we were doing and really made it all worth it to me, even more so than it already did.
Here is our data: Marine-Debris-East-Elwha-for-LEKT-June-2015.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment