Day 24: The Experiment

Today is our second day working with Tim Gerber, this time working on his experiment. We helped prepare his control and experimental group for the Eurasian watermilfoil growth suppression. What Tim wants to do is figure out whether putting a biodegradable mesh on top of harvested milfoil will suppress future growth. In the greenhouse, he grew milfoil in ten buckets. Spencer helped Tim harvest the milfoil in the containers. Tim collected the milfoil and will dry and weigh them at the university. This will allow him to compare future growth in control and experimental groups. We randomly chose five buckets to act as the experimental group and placed mesh on the sediment. Rebecca and Emily helped to cut the mesh to fit into containers that Tim had in the greenhouse for his experiment. 

Tim hypothesizes that putting the mesh on harvested milfoil will suppress future growth. He is also trying to recreate the experiment on a larger scale in Lulu Lake. On half of the space that we cleared yesterday, we will put a frame with mesh weaved in it. The other half we will leave clear to act as the control group. Ellen, Lucinda, and Joan helped make a frame by overlapping four wooden thin planks.

We used an additional plank to create a triangle diagonally to reduce shifting. We secured the frame with degradable rope that will allow the entire frame to break down by the end of the growing season. It will be put into the water tomorrow. 

After we finished, there was still time until lunch and we helped to identify some mussels that Sarah had in her office. We then went to Lulu Lake and talked with some of the divers that came by to visit and placed the frame covered mesh in the garage.

After lunch, we went to go visit the Meyer preserve for the first time- surprisingly it had less invasive species than expected. The view was beautiful and the trees brought great shade. We went hiking through the mini forest while we pulled any invasive species we saw. We saw a lot of Japanese parsley and thistle in the prairie. We also got to see a bluebird's nest and the male bluebird feeding the chicks!

Marissa got into her thistle hunting mode again and was very far away from us. It was a bit hard to see the thistle because the small ones blended in the the other purple flowers. The only difference is that thistle pricks you- they are not our friends. 

We got a lot done today, but we had to finish making our journal videos. We got great takes at the Meyer Preserve. When we got home we began to pack our bags and the kitchen materials. It's sad seeing all of our stuff get put away. It reminds us that we are only two days away from going home to New York. The house feels so empty now.

We wrote our final journal entries and Marissa collected them all. We also went through our final evaluation and found that we are still improving as interns. We also completed our videos to hand in at the end of our internship. It's been a good experience and a long day. Now to spend the last couple days having fun and saying our good byes.