I had an amazing time with this wonderful group of people and gained friendships and memories that will last a lifetime.

Week Eight was all  about the writing of our research papers, finishing posters, and cleaning out our labs and dorms to prepare for our trip to Minneapolis, while saying goodbye to this beautiful Mission Valley.

Week Seven we found ourselves at the Lewis and Clark Caverns and Yellowstone National Park WooHoo!! what an amazing journey it was.

Week Six, I was happy to be getting results and also having a great time in the field collecting data.

Week Five we received info on library resources started putting pieces together for our papers while continuing field work and exploring our surroundings.

Week Four was time to get down and dirty and to do some team bonding. Field operations were underway and we were all settled in and acquainted with the campus and our personnel.

Week three caught me a little off guard with a death in the family, but I returned ready to get back into action and start my gathering of data. I also had to get stuff set up in the lab in hopes that I would have some success in extracting Nematodes from my soil samples. I decided to go with the Bearmann funnel technique which involves flooding the samples and separating the organisms by means of gravity. 

Here is the set up I am using in the lab, it is a simple one but I am hoping it is effective.

Week two is about getting logistics set up for going out into the field and getting things set up in the lab. I will be using the Bareman Funnel technique to extract nematodes from soil,Here I have assembled my funnels and put screens in place, I will put soil samples in cheese cloth and place them in the funnels and flood the funnels with water and allow them to set for 24-36 hrs. The critters I am looking for will come out of the soil samples and be collected by gravity in the tubing attached to the bottom of the funnels, I will then drain the water and examine what I collect through a microscope.. lets hope it works!! I am excited to see what we will find.

This is our team , Team SPAW at our visit to Kerr Dam.

We learned allot about the area we are in the first week here, and the many challenges that the tribes here face in their efforts to reestablish control of their reservation lands that were lost to homesteading act in the early 1900’s. I am amazed at the beauty Nature has to offer here, as I stand in one of the coolest places on earth. This place is where the Glacial Lake Missoula was formed and released many times in the Great Missoula Floods of the last Ice age. I come from Yakima Washington where the Scab Lands were formed from the many occurrences of this great geological event. We also learned allot about creating wetlands and the management of those areas as they develop into very diverse areas of biological activity.