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Summer Research Experience: Student Blog

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July 27, 2017, by Corey Carter

Kuzushi: The gentle art of balance

Corey at Tram
The forest is like a living organism, it breathes and expels water much like we breathe air. This process of evapotranspiration is… I’m sorry I can’t do this, every blog post, every year talks about the same thing, in a slightly different way. I’m going to talk to about something that has helped me during some dark times and it
July 26, 2017, by Karina Martinez

Attack of the Invasive Species: Garlic Mustard and Exotic Earthworms Affect Plant Diversity

Treating Plot
Imagine easy-on-the-ears bluegrass melodies, an occasional summertime thunderstorm, a mama bear on the side of the road with her cubs, illuminating fireflies within the grasses at night, and vivid green forest scenery. This is a summer to remember for an Angelino city girl. These experiences come from living at Harvard Forest, and traveling within Massachusetts and New York with my
July 21, 2017, by Sarah Pardi

Can Manganese Help Save the World from Climate Change? Let’s Find Out!

Sarah performing pyrophosphate mineral extractions. Photo by Alex Gamble
Each morning after I eat breakfast with my fellow researchers/friends, I make my daily commute to University of Massachusetts, Amherst. It’s a beautiful 45 minute drive along windy roads through dense forest and quaint rural towns. Upon arrival at Paige Lab, I get to work on the soil samples I’ve collected from our plot back at Harvard Forest. My research
July 21, 2017, by Jolene Saldivar

When Phenology Meets Technology

Phenology is the biological response to the changing seasons. Day length, temperature, precipitation, and other factors drive leaf-out and leaf fall in trees. In order to avoid undergoing damage by putting their leaves out too early as winter transitions to spring, trees require a particular amount of sunlight each day before leaves can emerge. Similarly, when the hours of daylight
July 18, 2017, by Jen Johnson

Cooking With a Laptop?

Visual representation of flow
How are data analysis and the collection of provenance like cooking? Data analysis is based on datasets, like those collected in the field and laboratory. Datasets are the basis for the rest of the analysis and represent the raw ingredients of a meal. Next, analyses are performed on these datasets. There is a wide variety of possible analyses to perform,
July 17, 2017, by Nicholas Patel

White Oak Regeneration, Is It a Crisis or Not?

Boring Tree at the Mohawk Trail State Forest
Scientists and foresters have documented and monitored the increasing mortality of oak trees in the United States for over the past century. This decline has become a high-profile issue because oaks account for one third of our nation’s hardwood saw timber volume, most of which is coming from eastern states. Of the 20 commercially valuable oak species, white oak is
July 13, 2017, by Colleen Smith

The Smallest of the Small, a Step into the Unknown

canopy photo taken with the hemispherical camera
7:00 am Snooze 7:10 am Snooze 7:30 am Wake up, pull on cargo pants, lace up boots 8:10 am Breakfast 9:00 am Walk onward into the lair of the mosquitos with my net on and trustee meter stick in hand This is more or less how I’ve begun each of my days here at Harvard Forest. I have a schedule,
July 13, 2017, by Connor Gregorich-Trevor

Where did that data come from, anyway?

Imagine that you've found an interesting piece of research, but you feel that it left certain questions unanswered. So you decide to start your own project based on this research. But when you go to begin, you find out that the authors gave almost no information about how they obtained their data. You don't know what kind of programs they
July 12, 2017, by States Labrum

There’s More to the Soil Than You Think

Chloroform addition to measure microbial biomass. Photo by Aaron Aguila
From Spring Hill, Tennessee to Petersham, Massachusetts, I am so thankful to have the opportunity to be here at Harvard Forest. I have learned so much in the short time that I have been here. There are so many outdoor activities to do around the area and there is always something fun going on. All the REU students stay together
July 12, 2017, by Valentin Degtyarev

Trust Me, I’m an Engineer… in the Forest.

Tram starting to move
When you think of someone who is in the field of Computer Engineering, you picture someone who sits indoors in their little cubicle, working with a computer all day. Even when you Google search a computer engineer, you are only shown pictures of geeks like me working indoors, sticking their hands in the complicated wiring of a computer system. That’s
July 9, 2017, by Aaron Aguila

Everyone’s trying to avoid ticks here this summer, I’m trying to find them

Aaron taking samples
When most people think of infectious diseases they think of the common cold, the flu, diseases that we give to each other. Some of the world’s worst outbreaks, however, happened when people moved into uninhabited places or made changes to those local habitats. This summer I have been researching how the makeup of a forest after it has been harvested
July 7, 2017, by Caitlin Keady

Asking the hard questions… about extreme events and tree response

Caitlin showing off core
Who remembers last year’s drought? Well, the trees sure do. Imagine the beginning of spring, when leaves are starting to return and wildflowers are blooming. Then picture a sudden overnight frost. All those plants and trees that were kicking off their growing season likely went into shock and halted growth. Even though the frost only lasted one night, it may
July 6, 2017, by Jerilyn Jean M. Calaor

A Piece of Home Where the Cows Roam

Marking the coordinates on Harvard Farm
“Welcome to Boston,” a voice over the airplane intercom announced. Already 7,955 miles away from home, I still had an hour-long car ride ahead of me. I fought through heavy eyes as the city skyscrapers blurred into towering trees. Finally, we turned onto a dirt road, and the 22 hours of travel to Petersham came to an end. Stepping out
July 5, 2017, by Johnny Buck

Novel Methods, let’s have a party in the Harvard Forest!

Harvard Forest Barn Tower
Don’t you just love the emergence of plants in the spring or the changes in leaf coloring of trees in the fall? I’ve always admired the beauty and complexity of these events growing up. If you really pay attention to nature, you notice the first and last signs of insects at certain times of year, and when the migration of