Week 7 was the beginning of a new course, Marine and Coastal Ecological Research, led by Professor Elizabeth Boyle.  This class not only consists of a lot of reading material for class discussions, but it is also combined with field research followed by actual laboratory work from samples of water and sediment samples taken on those field trips.  This was a particularly exciting week for me because my Independent Study is Salt Marsh Zonation of three separate marshes here on Nantucket.  The field trips this week were to Medouie Creek and Folgers Marsh were we learned how to do zonation as a class.  We were grouped into 6 groups and I had the pleasure of working with Richie Corado and Timchi Khamdy.  We all put on our waders and in a brisk and windy first day we headed to Medouie Creek to do some zonation!  The following field trip was to Folgers Marsh where we also did zonation and soil and water sampling that we did some testing of in the laboratory at UMASS Boston Field Station located on Folgers Marsh.  Here are some pics of the Folgers Marsh field trip.

On a side note, time is flying by and I can’t believe we are more then halfway through the semester!  One more week to Spring Break!

Folgers critters

Group Activity

Folgers Marsh Tidal Creek

The dorms at the field station at this time of year is a great place to get away from the hectic pace of our dorm rooms here in town.  On Sunday I jumped at the chance to grab my book bag and head to the station for some solitude and much needed focus study time devoted towards my Independent Study.  Here are some pics of the outside of the dorm house and some of the surrounding landscaping.

On one of our field trips this week, Mark Willett an engineer for the Wannacomet Water Company, took us on a tour of Nantucket’s newest water tower, which holds 2 million gallons of fresh water that is tapped from Nantucket’s very own pristine aquifer.  Ones of the issues that the island is having is maintaining the aquifer free of pollutants from runoff and septic tank intrusions, so Mark and his team are trying to constantly to monitor the quality of the water.  Another issue that takes place on the island is the influx of tourist during the summer months, which has a huge impact on the water table, and its ability to get recharged.  The aquifers sole source of recharge is rainfall, and the large flock of tourist during the summer months takes a huge toll on the water level of this aquifer.  It was interesting to see inside this tower, i always thought it was full of water on the inside, yet we found out that the cylindrical portion of the tower is hollow, and the electronics and actual pipes are accessible, and Mark even treated us to a fresh cup of water directly pumped from the aquifer…………crisp and clean!!!!!

Here are some pics that I took, various people featured are Timchi Khamdi, Sarah Jacobs, Sophia Bass-Warner, Amelianoaire Atwood, Dr. Frankic, Dr. Douglas, and Jeremy Raynor……….hope y’all enjoy!

This saturday my capstone teammates took it upon ourselves to head out with waders and venture to two of the three salt marshes that are part of our capstone focus.  We explored The Creeks and Medouie Creek for a good five hours, venturing into the solitude and beauty of places not typically explored.  Sam Byer, our local tour guide and also classmate and capstone mate directed us in our adventure, and joining the team was Jesse Bean, and the fearless and enthusiastic Sarah Jacobs, who isn’t part of our capstone team, but jumped at the chance at an unexpected nature hike!  I captured some pictures before my camera’s battery died…..boooooooo……..yet I hope you get some enjoyment out of the ones that I was able to take!

The final project in Ecopoetics was a group project in which we were to collaborate together and come up with a poem that in essence described our three week journey through the naturally poetic setting — Nantucket — and how nature evoked a deeper sense of self through written form.  My group consisted of Nicole Mangano, Amelia Atwood, Sam Byer, Rob Capossela, Connor McKay, and myself.  It was an interesting process to be a part of, as we were given a prime to follow, and write out about ten lines of poetry on different perspectives on how nature had influenced us over the past three weeks. It was really cool seeing how we were able to agreeably coelesce different peoples lines and mold them into one line of poetry.  Our group was different from the others in the sense that Sam decided that writing the lines out and cutting them out, would allow us greater flexibility in creating a more cohesive and easy flowing poetic form.  Len was very supportive in our approach and even informed us that the process we were using in approaching our creativity is a process that is in current use, and that there is actually a book on it!  Drawing a blank at the moment on the Title of both the approach and the book……..the blizzard left me numb and disoriented…… :-/But anyhow,  the result of our group project is posted in the pic above, hope y’all enjoy! Ecopoetics was a brilliant way to get us to think of nature as an art form, and Professor Germinara was an excellent tourguide through this transformative landscape…………Thank You Len, from the bottom of my poetic Soul!