With fall break behind us; our internships, the capstone project, and classes are ramping up and we are buckling down for the ride!
Starting off the week with my internship with the Town of Nags Head, I sat in on the Shoreline Management Committee meeting where staff and citizens addressed possible options for the town’s estuarine shoreline. They discussed the impacts that rising sea levels could have on the soundside and even mentioned the construction of living shorelines. Seeing the relevance of our capstone project to the local community made me excited to invite them to our presentation in December. After the fascinating meeting, I spent the rest of the day with the town’s water quality coordinator Todd to investigate an alleged violation. We also we talked about the town’s stormwater management and other issues facing the town.
Our classes this week consisted mostly of presentations. For coastal ecology, we split up into groups to research the impacts that climate change will have on various ecosystems found in the Outer Banks and construct a concept map. My group presented on the impacts tidal marshes will experience. For coastal economics, we all presented on academic articles and mine was on ecosystem-based management and how to measure changes in the ecosystem’s wealth. The highlight of the presentations was definitely Bianca who presented on the economic impacts of biological invasions but assumed the persona of Shontelle, the group’s beloved plush toy shark, and detailed how she was going to wreak havoc on PeopleLandia.
Wednesday was our collection day for capstone so we split off into small groups and traveled throughout the Outer Banks. Emily P., Tara, and I went down to Hatteras to collect methane flux samples. Of course, we made some detours to the lighthouse and spent some time on the beach. We made significant progress towards the capstone this week by processing all of the gas samples gathered so far and starting to combust the core samples.
Besides presentations on Tuesday and Thursday, we finally met Bryan Giemza, director of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, in person and discussed the value of community archiving in regards to inclusiveness and telling the untold sides of history. He then treated us with an excerpt from a novel he is currently writing!
We woke up early on Friday to head over to Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head to begin our lab on ghost crabs. We made transects along the beach and counted the number of ghost crab burrows because they’re a proxy for the determining the crab’s population. Altogether, we observed three sites along Nags Head’s beach with differing conditions. Some of the sites were a part of the town’s beach nourishment project back in 2012 and all the sites had differing levels of human activity such as beach driving or foot traffic. With the data we collected, we’re going to see if there are any trends with the degree of human influence and the abundance of ghost crab burrows.
On Saturday morning, some of us headed over to Cape Hatteras National Seashore to take part in Make a Difference Day! Along with other volunteers of all ages, we planted over 3,000 sea oats! A few hours later, a few of us assisted the Dare County Arts Council in their silent auction benefit gala. The theme was a masquerade and we quickly took the opportunity to go all out and dress up.
This week was definitely the busiest so far in the program but we can’t complain when we are in the most gorgeous part of North Carolina!