Stream assessment class.
Jul. 21st, 2007 03:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jademermaidSo, we just got home from the stream assessment class and my mind is still humming with information and excitement. I learned *so* much that I didn't know, about engineering, water flow, stormwater, stream corridors, erosion, water quality....wow. It was more than I could get all at once, and yet I think I absorbed quite a lot. Corey and I were the only civilians there, I'm pretty sure. Everyone else was somehow involved with environmental or state agencies of some sort. You all would have been proud of me, I offered to fill out the first data reports when everyone fell silent, and even got ahead of things well enough to get kudos from the coordinator.
The first part was a classroom situation, where we learned about how to collect the data and fill out the sheets that are provided for folks to survey streams. We learned about procedures, what the difference between a bank and flood plain is, and I learned lots of terms I'd never heard of before: watersheds, gabion rock, rip-rap, corridors, etc. Lots of visuals, lots of photos.
After we broke for lunch - by the way, we went to a place in Murfreesboro called Taqueria La Playita, which has OMG, super yummy Mexican food--we went out into the field. We were supposed to go to three streams, but we only made it to one, which we ended up staying at for two hours. It was really great to get into a stream and see what all the terms meant in practice. I got the hang of it pretty quickly, even though the terms and degrees of degradation seem to be very flexible. The goal, she said, was to have one team of two people be in charge of one stream or river area for an extended period, taking data every six months or so. It hasn't worked out that way, but maybe it still can. In that way, the meanings of say, an acceptable buffer zone would be specific to one group, and changes over an extended period would make more sense.
Anyway, I learned a great deal and found it to be a good use of my day. We were then supposed to go to another stream, but we got lost on the way, and we had a lot to do, so we just went home. I sent the head coordinator an email, explaining why we bailed, but I'm pretty sure we weren't the only ones who did.
The first part was a classroom situation, where we learned about how to collect the data and fill out the sheets that are provided for folks to survey streams. We learned about procedures, what the difference between a bank and flood plain is, and I learned lots of terms I'd never heard of before: watersheds, gabion rock, rip-rap, corridors, etc. Lots of visuals, lots of photos.
After we broke for lunch - by the way, we went to a place in Murfreesboro called Taqueria La Playita, which has OMG, super yummy Mexican food--we went out into the field. We were supposed to go to three streams, but we only made it to one, which we ended up staying at for two hours. It was really great to get into a stream and see what all the terms meant in practice. I got the hang of it pretty quickly, even though the terms and degrees of degradation seem to be very flexible. The goal, she said, was to have one team of two people be in charge of one stream or river area for an extended period, taking data every six months or so. It hasn't worked out that way, but maybe it still can. In that way, the meanings of say, an acceptable buffer zone would be specific to one group, and changes over an extended period would make more sense.
Anyway, I learned a great deal and found it to be a good use of my day. We were then supposed to go to another stream, but we got lost on the way, and we had a lot to do, so we just went home. I sent the head coordinator an email, explaining why we bailed, but I'm pretty sure we weren't the only ones who did.
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 09:55 pm (UTC)