The first two days of the NCED REU on Sustainable Land and Water Resources up in Cloquet, MN and the Fond du Lac Reservation were terrific. The REU interns this year are Adrienne Warmsley, Alec Keiper, Zack Kisfalusi, and Wayne Greensky. The mentors are Christa Drake, Phil Woods, and Amy Myrbo. We’ve already learned quite a bit about one another like, that Zach likes to eat his sweet corn raw, and that Adrienne dreams about being a comedian. We’ve talked about a little of this, and a little of that over the last two days.

The focus of our research this summer will be trying to better understand the history of the wetland-fen Triangular Feature (TF) and how it fits into the larger picture of the Fond Du Lac Reservation watershed. The interns are excited to get into the field tomorrow, we plan to do some site characterization, make some observations about vegetation, and take a core sample or two to get a look at the sediments. Exciting! We have awesome new walking sticks for safety, ironwood courtesy of Cord Timo.

Phil Woods – Diatom Mentor

Phil Woods making a walking stick out of Ironwood.