Ecology 101

Who would've thunk(!), least of all persons, me...that I would be tramping through grass as tall as I am. I have no regrets whatsoever for taking Ecology Lab this semester. The best part of the lab classes are that they're held outdoors. Today, my class along with my professor and two student assistants went to the Chichaqua Bottoms Greenbelt about a 30 minute drive away from Des Moines.

We were taught various techniques used in studies to collect specimens for sampling such as "I forgot the name" fencing, telemetry which is basically radio tracking and utilizing snake boards. Throughout the lab session, we managed to track down a Painted Box Turtle, several garter snakes and tons of frogs. It was fun to handle the turtle and snake, though garter snakes tend to secrete musk as a defense mechanism. I got some all over my hand but I washed it off on the way back at the gas station.

It's funny to see how some guys, though macho looking were afraid to handle the really small and non-venomous snakes. Haha! I beat them to it. However, all the tramping in the prairie did seem like fun in the first 45 minutes but after that, it got to be really tiring and hot. The temperature outdoors was about 92F which is about 32C I think. Imagine standing out in the open for about 2.5 hours. By the end of the lab session, I was about to collapse from the heat and from exhaustion. I'm still sooo...tired from the trip, I think everyone was.

On the way back, we had to stop for gas and our Professor felt a little bad for keeping us for over an hour after our lab period had supposedly ended that he decided to buy all of us drinks at the gas station. That was really not neccessary but it was a very nice thing for him to do. It's no wonder I love all my Biology and Environmental Science professors. Next week we'll be heading down to a stream/river to collect fish specimens to study. I think I want to get into waders already!