General Orientation
The Conservation Camp is organized into seven large activities. Each of these activities will require you to acquire and demonstrate specific skills and behaviors (S&B). Undergraduate participants will generally be required to move from the Novice S&B to the Advanced Beginner S&B level. Graduate students are expected to develop S&B at the Competent level.
The activities are generally problem oriented. You will be presented with an overall problem and you are expected to solve the problem as a group. Leadership skills are part of this problem-solving exercise.
The Assignments provide a concrete activity that will help you develop your skills and behaviors. The Evaluation Rubrics provide specific evaluation criteria. These will be used to determine how well you have met the challenges posed by the problems.
The Skills and Behaviors links provide you with an overall assessment of what is expected. These lists provide general guidelines.
The Resources link you to a wide variety of materials that you can use to help you acquire skills.
Each Field School participant much reach a balance between individual and team activities, with emphasis on team projects.
Resource Modules
Conservation Camp Problems
1. General Outdoor Ability
You need to be able to survive for extended periods by living outdoors under relatively primitive conditions.
Individuals must be able to handle their own needs, as well as to help other individuals. They must function in teams that are safe, productive and efficient.
Habitation requirements include being able to operate under adverse conditions.
You will need to be mobile and able to transport yourself, supplies and equipment to different areas to do your field studies.
The skills relate to an overall conservation ethic of leaving, at worst, a minimal footprint as you leave a site.
2. Safety
There are a lot of challenges to be met when working in outdoor environments. Follow this link for some ideas.
Safety is our foremost concern. Our emphasis is on prevention, but everyone must also be prepared to handle a variety of emergencies.
Field activities are a team endeavor. Safety involved all aspects of team organization and communication.
Conservation Camp Problems (continued)
4. Weather versus Climate
As a slightly oversimplified view, weather is what is happening now while climate is the average of what has happened in the past. We depend on climate to provide predictions. Comparing these predictions to actual conditions provides a way to interpret how the variability in the climate influences an area and its biota.
Creating problems in this general category involves data mining, data collection and analysis.
View this as an opportunity to look at spatial and temporal variability across landscapes and decades.
5. Site Documentation
This is an opportunity to look at the habitat of rare and endangered species. It takes students to the ground-zero of the conservation movement. It is also a chance to document systems that are potentially useful to people and which may serve as both an economic benefit as well as contribute to conservation.
This is also an opportunity to document the current pattern of invasive species' distributions. This is another conservation-critical activity.
Skills involve site measurement, species identifications, species abundance, mapping, and community analysis.
6. Plant Documentation
The collection and preparation of voucher specimens is relevant to both types of camps. The actual problems of doing this under field conditions will better prepare students for real-world studies.
This links to examination of the herbarium and its role in identification of species, preservation of study materials, and as a source of species distribution information.
7. Studying Transects
Experimental design warrants its own focus. Transects are a traditional tool for ecologists.
Alternative transect designs can demonstrate gradients in climate. If properly planned, they might show phenological differences.
Can rapid ecological assessment, species diversity, and population studies be put under this unbrella? Should they?
Project Ideas (which have not yet been developed)
Sand Dunes (near Burney site)
Species variability due to environmental factor (need a comparison site)
Cemetery Flowers
Examine the differences between flower species in the local cemeteries around the island
Farmers Markets
Gain observational skills examining and analyzing data from weekly markets
3. Plant Identification
Learning to do field identification in a limited area which has a limited number of species can be a fast, fun exercise. It is an exercise that provides great satisfaction once the full species list is mastered.
You must learn the strategies for identification to be an effective field researcher.
Species identification is also a skill that is generally expected of any field researchers.