Citizen Scientist

Today at Colfax we found a wig laying around in the street along the site. It was weirs and unusual. Today at Nashville we had an interaction with a senior resident in the area. She began to explain to me that a lot of the residents in the Nashville area are complaining about the maintenance of the site. They say that the plants in the site are growing to large and that they would like for someone to come and trim the plants at the site.

I was excited to see that the lysimeter was put back together and working. However the scale inside the box still seems to be out of order.

I still don’t have access to the site, as the fence is still there and locked. There’s a lot of litter in the area around the site: mostly food wrappers, bottles, and cans. There were also bandaids and tissues. From what I could see at a distance of the site, the plants seem to be establishing slowly. The water levels have gone down since last week and seem healthier. A lot of birds use the site. There may have been mice in the grass around the area, because I would hear something shifting the grass whenever I stepped on a dry leaf.

While at my last visit, many people tend to stare at me for a few seconds to watch what i’m doing. No one really says anything though. Not too much happens at the site. Tomorrow I will be visiting the site after a few days of rain. I hope to see some interesting things within the site.

As I was cleaning up the bioswale at Caroll Street, I noticed that the plants were really healthy. Someone also seem to have placed new soil in the bioswale. Two weeks ago the soil at the bioswale was still old and extremely dry. There is also evidence that dogs used the site for defecation. The sidewalk upstream from the inlet is still damaged and soil from the inlet upstream can get washed into the bioswale when raining. Other than that the bioswale looks great.

As I was working in Nashville the plants seem to be dying. This is how I know that summer was over and winter was coming.
In the Colfax site there are still a lot bees in there. I think the nest is still there or they had created a new one.

As I was working in Nashville the plants seem to be dying. This is how I know that summer was over and winter was coming.
In the Colfax site there are still a lot bees in there. I think the nest is still there or they had created a new one.

While working at Colfax on Monday i overheard a citizen complaining about the height of the plants at the site. She said someone needs to come cut them down, which i can understand because they have grown a lot over these past few weeks.

I decided to compare weather and temperature against soil moisture and vegetation health in my graph. The weather is represented by the sun or cloud symbol, and the thick grass background represents the constant healthy vegetation observed on each day. I realized afterwards that I should have switched the y-axes, so that weather was at the top. It would’ve made more sense for the viewers. In terms of patterns, nothing about this data is conclusive since the sampling is done qualitatively and in such a short stint. However, on the 16th, you can see that soil moisture increased on a cloudy day with cooler temperatures. That’s a reasonable observation; it follows that cooler temperature promotes condensation of moisture in the sky and soil. Also, clouds imply low pressure which discourages the chance of evaporation. Another observation seen in the graph is that soil moisture remained average or above average allowing for the continued health of the vegetation. Were the moisture to drop, we would probably see a drop in the vegetation’s health soon after.

Hi everyone, I apologize for the delay in data collection for Carroll and Poppenhusen. But I’m back and ready to work. I’m sad to see the NY reps returning to Drexel and the program coming to a close. I enjoyed their counsel throughout the program. It is my understanding that we finish sampling September 24. If anyone knows otherwise, please correct me. Today, I was acclimated to the Poppenhusen site with Jeff. He showed me where the intakes and the wire connections were. I have to say, this site is quite pleasant. For those who don’t know, I just figured out that Poppenhusen was the nation’s first kindergarten ever! Jeff told me today, so cool. It had this lovely backyard/courtyard with really old trees encircling the lawn which was speckled with cute benches and chairs. I wished more of NYC was like this, with more intimate green spaces sheltered from the sounds of the city. in the future, I’m definitely going to live in an area where those spaces are available.