Ia orana!
Time to officially kick off the start of the blog with an update (but sadly, no pictures). Classes have been good though rather intensive. The class as a whole is getting an average of about 5 hours of sleep per night, weekends and myself included, with all of the papers we have to read and the all-day classes. Still, it's kind of fun spending the whole day with such a cool group of people - we've even taken one on as a houseguest for these two weeks, so she's been camping out in the living room since last Sunday night.
In Moorea we'll be doing two original research projects in different groups of three people each. So far it looks like the first project will be a study of tourist impacts on coral reefs, particularly in areas around Moorea's coastal hotels. We're hoping to find some sort of connection between the level of education regarding the reefs that is provided at the hotel and the level of damage that is seen in the reefs where the hotel guests tend to go. We recently changed our second project from a study of the effects of mangroves on soil and species composition to a study of sea urchin home ranges and whether the ranges' sizes are affected by their quality (good/plentiful algae, predators, etc). The cool thing about that project is the fact that urchins are nocturnal, so we're going to have to go snorkeling at night to track them. It's been done before, so it won't be too bad. Hopefully everything will go according to plan...
In other news, my post-graduation future looks pretty set. Check the links on the left (under "Post-Moorea") to see what's in store!
And with that, I'm off to do more research and write a project proposal. What fun.
2 comments:
WAAAAAH you guys were GONE when I came back!!
Yeah, sorry dude. I'll email you later about stuff I need you to do. Like pay bills.... but have fun in the single!
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