The first day of our statewide roadtrip started like most others: with breakfast at UW. Then, we loaded up and hit the road. As members of the Spring Creek field study, we’re used to long hours in the vans, so our first stop – Independence Rock – didn’t seem so far away. The Rock was…
Tag: Wyoming
Wyoming Spring Creek – A Day in Yellowstone
I woke up this day exhausted and not wanting to leave one of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever slept in at the small campground at the base of the Grand Tetons. The day before I hiked twelve miles through the Tetons, so I wasn’t looking forward to the 6 mile hike at Yellowstone this…
Wyoming Spring Creek: Day Three of the Trip Around the State
We woke up in the Badlands this morning, after playing hacky-sack in the sunset and catching a glimpse of the bizarre looking Starlink satellite the night before. After packing up our tents, eating breakfast, and loading the vans we were on our way to find plant fossils! We began our day at Big Cedar Ridge,…
Wyoming Spring Creek: Road Trip Day 4
Two days after getting back from our trip around Wyoming, I’m reliving all the incredible experiences we had and mentally preparing myself to leave this amazing state. Laramie and the shortgrass prairie have stolen a piece of my heart, but the northern part of the state–the Bighorns, Yellowstone, the Tetons, and Shoshone National Forest–is so…
Wyoming Spring Creek: Trip Around the State
Ten days ago, my classmates and I began our trip around Wyoming to broaden our new knowledge about the geography and ecology of the West. We watched sunrises, camped in the badlands, visited incredible geographical formations, and swam in the Tetons. Although we all found it exhausting, every day was incredibly fulfilling and edifying. The…
Wyoming Spring Creek: Prairie Dogs Holes and the Surrounding Soil
When deciding what I wanted to do for my independent project, I knew that I wanted to do something related to the animals on the property. I’m specifically interested in small mammals, and the abundance of prairie dogs on the property made choosing them to research was an easy choice. Along with their strong presence…
Independent Project – Bizarre Vegetation Bands Along the Mowry Formation
In our first week on the Spring Creek preserve I noticed a strange pattern: Along the hillsides near our camp there were a series of horizontal vegetation bands, alternating between relatively sparse and dense vegetation. I immediately began to question why this was happening. My conclusion was that, since the bands occurred along the strike…
Wyoming Spring Creek – Forest Regeneration Near Fallen Trees
I chose to do an ecology-based independent project. For my question, I asked “Does proximity to large piles of coarse woody debris affect the overall species diversity in regenerating forest by way of light availability, browsing by ungulates, and/or space availability”? I then hypothesized that areas nearer to coarse woody debris will have more diverse…
Wyoming Spring Creek – Endangered Species Habitat Analysis
The environment of the Spring Creek Preserve here in Wyoming is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before – and it is something that I am unlikely to have the opportunity to study in-depth again. That’s why, when choosing the question for my independent research project, I wanted to focus on the prairie ecosystem. Despite appearing…
Wyoming Spring Creek: Pollinators of the Snowy Range
For my independent research project, my hypothesis that I investigated was “if the time of day and weather vary (in terms of a temperature, wind, and precipitation), then pollinators will display different behavior.” The materials I utilized in the field included a plant identification guide to ID wildflower species, a clock to time 10-minute intervals,…