My
experience with FORRU started off as a whirlwind, and it hasn't died down yet
in the slightest. Though I have had less days in the field lately, I have been
just as busy helping out around the office, keypunching data, and (most
excitingly!) starting up my own laboratory.
For
almost two full weeks from when we left off (Tham Pha Thai), I worked in the
office on data entry. Around 20 years ago, someone wrote down a bunch of tree
species in a set of books. FORRU now needs them electronically -- and they
aren't gonna type themselves!
Data
entry was interspersed with hammering out some tags for the Tham Pha Thai
trees. Literally. The TEAN interns spent two whole days on the landing with
hammers and alphanumeric stamps, stamping out over 2500 aluminum tags.
This
past weekend, I volunteered at an all-day endeavour: youth camp. FORRU hosted
the Chiang Mai Demonstration School for a day of learning, hiking, and
conservation. Though really tiring, I had a blast that day, and got to support
the FORRU team teaching kids how to conserve, restore, and sustain.
The
last week and a half, though, has been dominated by the most exciting facet
yet: our experiment. Once our Thai language classes were over, FORRU's director
held a meeting with the TEAN interns to ask us all what we were looking to do
-- I was one of two who were selected to bootstrap opening up a laboratory and
performing a scientific experiment.
So far,
everything is looking good. After days of running willy-nilly trying to track
down all of the supplies necessary for the lab (a converted coffee break room)
to function, Kyra and I are preparing to dive head-first into the science. We hope that, by the end of the next couple
of weeks, we have made a lasting impression on FORRU's plantation monitoring
techniques.
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