Our second week of orienting ourselves to our surroundings here in the Outer Banks proved to be as fun and informative as the first. A brief overview includes hiking in the swamp, completing the equivalent of most of a 300 level GIS class in one day, and taking turns flying in a tiny plane, but I’ll zoom in closer on some of the highlights.
Monday was our first official Community Advisory Board (CAB) meeting – we all gathered in a meeting room at the Nags Head Woods Preserve and got to know each other over enormous sandwiches, chips, and cookies. We enjoyed rotating through stations of CAB members to bounce our project ideas off of them and hear where their concerns lay in wastewater management. Following our lunch, a few CAB members and our motley crew of 13 went for a short guided walk through the woods. With no shortage of “get out me swamp!” references, we saw turtles, snakes, grasshoppers, and lots of spiders.
Students and CAB members admire snakes, birds, and turtles in Nags Head Woods Preserve.
“Get out me swamp!” – probably someone while I took this picture when we first arrived
On Tuesday, we remembered very fondly the previous day’s exploration in the woods as the day was filled with what Andy’s daughter (and current UNC grad student and GIS expert), Cory, aptly names “GIS headaches.” We were inside all day, looking at computers for most of it, and very confused for a large majority. I think everytime she asked if we were ‘all good’ my response was a confused ‘no,’ and anytime she asked if anyone needed help she looked straight at me as my hand went up and computer screen filled with things that no one else was looking at. We can all agree, however, that finishing the day with somewhat decent-looking, hopefully accurate maps of water temperature, pH, and E. coli in Dare county was an extremely satisfying experience. The workshop is epitomized in the below picture of Kat:
Kat visually demonstrating how we all were feeling, photo credits to Emma Szczesiul
After such a frustrating day, Wednesday easily ranks as one of the best of the semester so far for me. From 10AM-3PM we were outside together completing group bonding activities like champs and then climbing like monkeys on the high ropes course. The course was challenging and incredibly fun – with three vertical levels each consisting of 3 different courses, it’s safe to say most of us finished the day bruised, sore, with huge smiles on our faces. The physically exhausting day was topped off with a wonderfully relaxing evening on the beach.
I don’t think any of us really realized just how soon all of the group dynamics information would become so scarily relevant – but Thursday sure showed us exactly that. After staying up Wednesday night to finish our individual proposals, we spent Thursday afternoon reading and critiquing each others and then trying to agree on two ideas to expand upon for our group proposals. There was lots of back and forth, but not as much arguing and stalemate as one might expect from a 13 person group project, luckily we had our handy group dynamics toolbox from the previous days’ workshop to thank for that. After hashing it out a bit at CSI, we met up again at the house to complete and turn in both proposals by 10PM the day before they were due with minimal interpersonal damage sustained, which I count as a group win in my book.
I’ll end this post with a photo series to describe our beautiful Friday morning plane rides over the outer banks.
From left, Danesha, Marium, Autumn, and Jenn begin boarding the five passenger plane. Jenn and I rock-paper-scissored for the cockpit position.
Autumn and Marium were all smiles with their headsets on just before taking off…
A view of Jockey’s Ridge from above – making it look a lot more flat than it felt climbing up the dunes.
A selfie to commemorate Danesha’s FIRST EVER plane ride!
I find myself constantly needing to remind myself (and anyone who’ll listen) that “We LIVE here!!!!” – looking at this picture is one of those moments
A group picture with our pilot
We talked to this beautiful pup’s owner and pilot in training the entire time the last group was in the air – I think we all came away from the conversation seriously considering getting a pilot’s license.
From left: Danesha, Lynn, Alex, Harris, and Marium leaving the beach. That’s a wrap on orientation, folks.