Garden of Ideas

 Hello everyone,
    I hope that everyone is having a fantastic week! It has been a very productive week, and I am excited to finally post about my semester project and whom I am working alongside. It is going to be a fantastic semester!  
    I am honored to finish a project that started some years ago, before covid hit and changed our world. This Spring, I will work closely with Dr. Elena Ortiz and lead an observational experiment in the college gardens. The two gardens that will be the focus of my project are the southeast edible garden and the north native garden. This project will entail me utilizing arthropod traps previously installed by the last group (led by Chris Livingston) in both gardens. There are 12 traps total, split up equally between gardens, and once they are functional, they will be trapping arthropods that crawl across them and fall into them.  
    This observational experiment focuses on comparing the species in each garden, finding out what bugs are native, what are invasive, and what is helping/hurting the garden, for example. There may be more variables, but we are still in the conceptual phase.  
    This experiment was started by a previous TRAIN scholar, Chris Livingston, and I will be building off of his focus while adding my finishing touches and vibe. I wanted to continue with this project because the data was still good, and it would be even more exciting to see changes spanning years instead of just one semester.  
    I had such a fantastic time last semester working with Josh, and It was such a hard choice to switch over. However, working with Dr. Ortiz was also a must, considering her educational background focusing on plant science, the environment, and horticulture. The good news is that I will still be able to work with Josh, creating a presentation surrounding our experiment last semester and eventually getting to present it formally. This is very exciting, and it is an amazing opportunity.  
    Finally, I am also feeling better than I came down to full-time (12 credit hours) Last semester; with my three classes, labs, internship, and working nearly full time, it was not as much time as I would have wanted to put towards my TRAIN project.  
     

I cannot wait to see what everyone else is working on, and If you see me in the bio-sciences department, come and say hi!  -Alex S