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Today was a great day. We worked on phenology and independent projects in the morning. At lunch we talked about plans for the week and heard all about Anna’s Waterama victory as First Princess!!! We thought she deserved to be the queen, but alas, 1st princess is pretty good also! After lunch it was a long afternoon measuring in p1. After a few hours, we are almost done measuring in p1. Only a few more rows to go! Until next flog…
 Monarda at Staffanson is beautiful! Hi all! This week I’ve had the opportunity to participate in the Planting Science Digging Deeper workshop in Colorado Springs. Planting Science is a really cool program that pairs teachers with scientist mentors (like me!) so that students can get feedback from “real” scientists while developing and conducting experiments in class. This particular workshop is important because it’s part of a larger research project. Though Planting Science has existed for over a decade, BSCS (the organization that developed Planting Science) wants to demonstrate more quantitatively how participation in this program impacts student understanding. I am training to be a “mentor liaison” that will smooth communication between teachers and other scientist mentors. The workshop has included discussions about science content, pedagogy, and mentorship! When the workshop started we were separated into teams and developed team names. My team represents Echinacea since we are “The Disc Florets”.  The team poster! The workshop was focused on the module called “Power of Sunlight” which focuses on teaching photosynthesis. As part of the workshop we were able to conduct our own investigations about photosynthesis with spinach leaf discs, algal balls (very fun to make), and other aquatic plants.  Algae balls  Algae balls in phenol red solution  Materials for making spinach leaf disks We also were lucky enough to go on a field trip to Garden of the Gods, a beautiful city park in Colorado Springs. Here are some of the things we saw.  Walking along the path  Red rocks!  Style persistence?
Overall it’s been a great week. I’m excited to participate in the Planting Science program this fall, and I’ve had a great time in Colorado Springs!
 The Disc Florets! Today the crew at Andes decided to go out to breakfast! We found a cute spot and enjoyed our large breakfasts and unlimited coffee. After grocery shopping and a variety of other chores, we ended up back at Andes where Tracie made an amazing dinner. She made an Indian curry, with home-ground spices and coconut milk, topped with puff pastry. It was amazing. Overall we had a fun and relaxing Sunday!
 Flowering milkweed! We started off today assessing phenology in all of the remnants, and both experimental plots. I went to p2 with Anna and Ashley where we saw all stages of flowering from bud to done! One of the Echinacea plants I visited in p2 was gone, pulled down into a gopher mound. But many more plants were flowering and pollinators were busy collecting pollen. We met back at the Hjelm house for lunch, and had a nice meal on the porch. Our lunchtime conversation turned to one where we discussed the importance of telling a good narrative in science. We learned all about the “ABT” structure which consists of connecting two known facts with “and”, revealing the gap in understanding with, “but”, and finishing off with a “therefore” statement which offers resolution. The “ABT” format is useful for clarifying and communicating ideas, but it isn’t easy to do well right away, so we practiced framing our research projects in the ABT format- a good exercise for everyone! Next up we split into teams, worked on projects, added aphids the aphid addition plants in p1, finished mapping the Echinacea pallida plants at Hegg Lake, and wrapped up the day.  Pollinator hard at work in p2 Today we started off by dividing and conquering phenology in all of the remnants and in p1 and p2. Gretel and Stuart did phenology in p1 while Ashley and I took the Northwest loop, Will started solo then met up with Wes and Anna at p2. Meanwhile, Tracie and Alex discovered that Staffanson has lots of ticks this year. Stuart and Gretel took Hattie to camp, so the rest of the team had an extra short lunch then started measuring in p8. I finished GPSing points for the yellow pan traps as well. Overall we had a smooth day, with a few raindrops at the very end.
 A small head being pollinated by one of our native solitary bees!
 Cows were not particularly happy about phenology Monday… Today we had a slightly late start because we were concerned about weather. But, the rain held out and we managed to have a productive day! Ashley, Anna, Alex and I started the day with phenology and searching for Echinacea at Aanansen. This remnant is particularly interesting this year because many trees were removed from the top of the hill, making the landscape look totally different! After lunch, I went around solo for a bit and worked on vegetation analysis at some of my roadside sites. I’ll explain the project in more detail in a future flog post, so stay tuned! Finally, we ended the day by identifying all of the flowering Echinacea up at p2. After work, the Andes crew headed in to Alexandria to do some errands and try Culver’s (many of us for the first time!)  Sunset at Andes! Hello flog! My first day to post in 2017 was quite an exciting one. Ruth Shaw visited today, coming from the twin cities to help us with field work and explain some really cool results of research done in p1, the first common garden. As Ruth explained at lunch, there is still much to learn about evolution, particularly in learning how to predict future evolutionary potential in populations. Ruth and Stuart have been working for many years to understand how we might be able to do just this by studying “additive genetic variance” in the Echinacea planted in p1 and p8! Cool results are sure to come, so stay tuned for updates in the future. Another fun aspect of today involved getting the drone up and flying! This summer, I’ll be using the drone to try and quantify abundance of flowers in roadsides around Solem Township. Today I updated the firmware and tried a few trial flights over p1.  This is what p1 looks like from above today!  Flagging in p1! After work, I drove to Alexandria to pick up our first CSA box from Sundog Farms! Until next flog…
I wrote this after boarding a train in St. Cloud, MN late Friday evening. Little did I know the route I was on had no wifi, so this is a belated post about my last day in Kensington. Today was the last day of my time with Team Echinacea 2016- a second amazing summer out in Douglas County, MN. While I’m sad to be ending my field work, I’m looking forward to my impending move to Evanston, IL where I’ll be starting graduate school at Northwestern’s Plant Biology and Conservation program. Regardless, I was looking forward to my last day in the field. In the morning, I immediately left the Hjelm house for Staffanson to assess the flowering phenology of the Liatris and Solidago plants in my transect. Meanwhile, the rest of the team went to Hegg Lake for a morning of demo and harvesting in p2. Almost as soon as I arrived at Staffanson I noticed the mosquitoes were swarming worse than I had ever experienced! Luckily, Hegg wasn’t as bad, and we were able to finish harvesting at p2 before lunch. After lunch, harvest continued in p1. With just a couple remaining hours in the afternoon we headed out to Staffanson to work some more on Total Demo. Sulu and Chekhov were feeling a bit finicky, taking a good while to make an adequate data connection. By the time we actually started working, the mosquitoes were swarming again and after Amy had 20 bites on just one of her arms, we decided to call it a day and admit we had been “mosquitoed” out of field work. After tidying up the Hjelm house, my last day of 2016 field work came to a close. Back at town hall, Amy made us what might be my new favorite cake, oatmeal cake with cream cheese frosting, and James made some delicious baked mac and cheese. We enjoyed a game of Catan, took an evening walk around Kensington, then drove to St. Cloud where I boarded my Midnight Train to Spokane and settled in for a 27 hour ride.
While much of Team Echinacea 2016 has returned to school (with Gretel, Hattie, and Roxy being our most recent members to say goodbye) the few of us remaining have decided it’s still time for some summer fun. So, today we started the day by sleeping in, eating various homemade breakfasts, and relaxing a bit more. As the morning chill burned off and the sun came out, we decided on a plan. The main activity of the day? Visiting the Douglas County Fair! We headed out in the early afternoon. Take a look at a few of the things we saw!  Each building had many interesting art pieces and exhibits. But what does this one mean?  The kids whose work is shown above may be talented photographers, but what is all this Echinacea purpurea doing in a Douglas County Fair photo contest? Echinacea angustifolia is actually native to Douglas County, unlike Echinacea purpurea!  Scott takes time to enjoy the Minnesota DNR building that is filled with exhibits on wildlife of the region. After the four of us explored this exhibit, we all spun the pollinator wheel and won posters after answering questions about native pollinators!  Here you see James and Amy depicted in this modern piece, “Sweet Corn is Summer”  James and Lea think real hard about what part of the goat the “poll” might be- they struggle less with “teat”.  Amy and Lea shown here as part of a performance art piece. “Just keep swimming with 4H” explores the roles of two young women accidentally caught in the current of the local big bass, 4H.
After our fun day at the fair, we shopped for our weekly groceries and drove back to Kensington. The weather today was truly fair, and the fair was truly wonderful- the perfect end to a great week! Today was the last day for the aphids on the team. As Scott did a final assessment of all of the aphid addition and exclusion plants, he noticed many of our aphid team members were coming to the end of their season. Alas, Team Echinacea 2016 says good by to our little aphid friends, wrapping up an exciting season of aphid addition and exclusion! In addition to working with the aphids, Laura and I finished up phenology on the remnants while James GPS’d the edges of a few more sites. I also took a look at all the plants I’m monitoring for flowering phenology at Staffanson. Most of the Liatris aspera on the east unit have started flowering, but Solidago speciosa is yet to begin. I also saw a flowering Prenanthes.  Flowering Liatris aspera  Flowering Prenanthes After lunch, we worked out at p1, searching for “can’t finds” and staples. The thunder started about 3:15 and we wrapped up early. Back at town hall, James made an amazing dinner of fresh tomato and vegetable sauce with polenta AND pasta. We ate a particularly ripe watermelon from our CSA, and I made a blueberry cobbler with all of the remaining blueberries left behind at town hall.  Blueberry cobbler, YUM |
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