Methods
Our group of 3 left Phillips Hall on the UWEC campus and headed to the river bank at 6:00 pm on Wednesday September 16th to complete the construction and the collection of data for our landscape. The temperature was in the middle 70's with a little more than average humidity. Previous to heading out into the field I had surveyed the area we were to construct our landscape in and I did not see any suitable locations of sand along the river bank. I spoke with a fellow class member about where they had found a good sandy location. He directed me to check directly underneath the walking bridge on campus which goes directly over the river.
The first step in creating our landscape was to level out the sand and clear any debris from our construction area. We then placed our box in the cleared out area. When we laid the box down we noticed that we had not leveled out enough sand to completely fill the box. We used our hands to drag, scoop and level off the additional sand need to fill the box.
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| (Fig. 1) Initial setup of the box before sculpting the features. |
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| (Fig. 2) Adding sand to fill in the low spots. |
The next step was to create surface features which had to include, a ridge, hill, depression, valley, and a plain per the instructions of our assignment. We used our hands to sculpt the sand in to the various features. We also used rocks to assist us in creating the hill, and ridge features. After construction of the landscape features was completed we measured the box using folding wood ruler and started to derive a plan for our coordinate system.
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| (Fig. 3) Sculpting the features with the use of rocks and measuring the dimensions of the box. |
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| (Fig. 4) Final layout of features for our landscape. |
After measuring the box our group decided on marking out the coordinate system in 7 centimeter increments. We felt 7 centimeters would give enough data points which would translate into a quality depiction of our landscape. We used pushpins to mark the increment locations, and we used string to layout a grid pattern over the entire box. The grid was 16 rows wide (x-axis) and 17 rows tall (y-axis), which gave us 272 control points to measure. We could not get a few of the push pins to go all the way in to the wood to keep the string tight, so we held tight by hand when the measurements were taking place in those grid locations.
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| (Fig. 5) 16 x 17 grid using push pins and string. |
With the x and y axis laid out our next step was to measure the depth from the string to sand (z-axis). Using a metal meter stick ruler we measure the depth to the nearest 1/2 millimeter. To record our measurements we created a table on notebook paper that matched the 16 x 17 grid and recorded the depth in the corresponding space on the paper. We later entered this data into a excel spreadsheet for future use.
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| (Fig. 6) Myself measuring the depth from the string to the sand. |
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| Field Chart of Elevation Points |
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| Field notes entered into Excel Spreadsheet |
Discussion
The directions for this assignment were very sparse, including what should be covered in this discussion section. The lack of direction is a great way to get you to actually think for yourself and be able to achieve the desired task.
One component which really helped me understand the assignment was to research previous blog postings from other semesters on this assignment. Understanding how others had done the project in the past and reading their mistakes helped our group efficiently manage our time and complete the activity with very few issues.
As stated previously we had issues getting the push pins to go all the way down in the wood to hold the string tight. Another issue I had was when measuring the height, the ruler would sink into the sand giving me an incorrect measurement. There was really no cure all for this issue other than to hold the ruler steady as it touched the sand. I feel this issue caused some inaccuracies in our measurements. Due to the size of the grid square, the height within the square varied where the elevation was changing. To remedy this situation we would need to make smaller increments on our grid.
With no specific directions for accuracy we felt the dimensions we decided on would fulfill the needs of the assignment and allow us to complete the measurement portion in the time we had available as a group. Our group had a limited window to as when all of our schedules lined up to get together. Not being able to go out until 6:00 didn't leave us much room for error before it would become dark and have to attempt to complete this assignment in the dark. Scheduling is the biggest issue with group work. If we could have had more than 2 hours of day light to work together I feel we may have chose to reduce the spacing dimension in the grid for a more accurate depiction of the landscape.
Conclusion
The skills and ideas in the assignment have real world applications. Working in a group, being able to think critically, and being able to adjust to the given situation and environment are useful in almost every job I can think of. The true results will not be known until we are able to plot our points on the computer. Overall, I learned a great deal about many concerns to think about when performing field work research.
The prior research I had done gave me confidence to achieve the task we were given. However, I feel it may have kept my ideas narrowed to the ideas previous groups had, and didn't allow me to think about everything for myself. I looked at their processes and thought how I could improve upon them. I never really thought about approaching the task from a totally different angle which may have been more effective.
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