NUCFAC PLT Greenschools! Y-LINC Spring Break 2014 - Day Three

Last night was our last night at Stubblefield Lake Recreation Area, so this morning our young leaders packed up their tents and picked up all the detritus of two nights spent under the stars before heading off to their first destination, the East Texas Plant Materials Center in the Stephen F. Austin Experimental Forest.

The Natural Resource Conservation Service maintains several Plant Materials Centers throughout the country, for the purposes of developing new solutions to conservation problems with native plants, according to Assistant Manager Melinda Brakie. She said that the ETPMC can take a handful of seeds harvested from the wild and develop a new release of a native plant that can resist drought or invasion by non-native plants. Plant Materials Centers like ETPMC release these new strains to commercial seed developers and non-profit groups, helping to improve agricultural yields, restore native prairies and much more.

Melinda showed us the ETPMC's interesting method of treating their wastewater: specially engineered beds of water-loving plants that soak up effluent and clean the water again, without a single moving part or artificial chemical. She also gave us a tour of the seed lab, where seeds are analyzed and germinated, as well as their seed sorting machine that uses air a specialized sieves to separate the seed for the chaff. The PLT Greenschools! certified students got to see the planted that they had planted in the Winter Break Y-LINC trip earlier this year, thus creating a photo-op for SFA High mascot Stevie.

Stephen F. Austin High School mascot Stevie with a tray of plants that the YLINC
campers planted in the Winter Break Y-LINC earlier this year. They have
obviously been in the good hands of the ETPMC staff!

We then traveled to Stephen F. Austin Sate University, where one of our long-time Amigos del Bosque partner Andre Saenz is currently in his introductory courses at the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture (ATCOFA). He is pursuing a degree in Wildlife Management, and we are very proud of him. 

Dr. Hans Williams, ATCOFA Professor of Urban Forestry talked at length about urban forests. He explained that while the trees of the city are in a very different environment than trees in the National Forest, an urban forester must still think of all the trees in a city as an urban forest in order to manage it properly. He explained how urban foresters must consider not only the health of the trees, but also the danger that they may pose to buildings or people should they shed branches or even fall down. He showed the students Kim Coder Hazard Tree Evaluation system, and showed them how a Picus Tomograph can reveal decay in a tree using ultrasound. Several of our students got a chance to use a resistograph, a device that drills a long brad into a tree and measures how much the tree pushes back, thus revealing growth rings and decay spots. 

Dr. Hans Williams shows Chris Williams how to use the resistograph.

John Sperry, an SFASU recruit then invited the students to ask questions of a panel of ATCOFA students, so that the next generation of university scholars can know what higher education is like from those who are experiencing it. The panel discussed how ATCOFA offers courses that have a large outdoor component, but also how the classes teach you how to use some of the high-end technology that is changing the way we conserve Earth's resources. Many ATCOFA students, especially those in a Forestry degree plan, will go through a six week intensive summer semester called field station, where they learn how to work like a professional forester, even if it means spending the night in the forest in order to complete a timber cruise. A love of the outdoors is essential to a potential recruit to ATCOFA, said Bryce Wells, a Forest Recreation Management undergrad. The panel definitely showed that there was a wide variety of students at ATCOFA, and that they were quite happy with their educations there.

U.S. Forest Service Conservation Education Specialist Tamberly Conway helps
camper Gilberto Carreon understand his results from the resistograph. 

Mr. Sperry also explained how the admissions process works. The top 10% of High School graduates are automatically accepted, and the test scores of students in the top 10 to 25 percent of the class are looked at: SAT scores of 1800, with 860 in Math and Science are preferred. SFASU also accepts transfer students from many community colleges.   

Dr. I-Kuai Hung, ATCOFA professor of Spatial Science, introduced the campers to the power of GIS and spatial technology. Dr. Hung enlightened students about how ubiquitous Geographic Information Systems are in their lives, powering the maps on their phones and creating vital information used by law enforcement, natural resource conservation agencies, and other groups to get answers to spatial questions. The students got to use a LiDAR based laser range finder, an example of a remote-sensing device that they might use if they entered the GIS field. Dr. Hung showed the campers that there is a very high-tech side to forestry, presenting several studies that ATCOFA students have done using GIS technology, such as a Black Bear Habitat suitability map and a model for using LiDAR to measure tree biomass remotely. LiDAR (Light Distance and Ranging) technology is the same technology used in radar guns by law enforcement.

Chris Williams uses a laser ranger finder to determine how far away he is from Dr I-Kuai Hung, Professor of Spatial Science at the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture at SFASU.

The campers then pitched their tents again at the lake house on the shores of Lake Sam Rayburn in the Angelina National Forest. While setting up to make fajitas over the campfire, something exceedingly flew in on delicate wings.

Students swarmed (gently) over to T-rex, who had a vibrant and very freshly hatched luna moth (Actias luna) on his hand. Our camper (and the adults) were completely amazed that we would have such luck at seeing one, and recorded that image in perpetuity on their smart phone cameras. You could easily see the magic in their eyes, and if we had accomplish not a one thing more on this trip, all the time and effort spent setting it up would have been worth it, at least perhaps for those student who beheld something they may never see again.

Lit only by flashlight apps, this luna moth patiently waited on a campers hand while we washed it in a thousand
flashes, its susurrant wings remaining motionless.

Interview with Flor Bernal

Flor Bernal is another camper from Austin High School, and she says that she is considering going to SFASU to study Wildlife Management. She enjoys nature, especially the water and the mountains. She says that she first became interested in high peaks in the 6th grade, "My teacher was hiking in the mountains, and while she was hiking she took video, and it really caught my attention. I like all the different plants an animals there."

She says she enjoys climbing and learning about nature. Her favorite part of this trip has been learning about plants "I always wanted to know what certain plants are used for and why they grow them. I like learning the names of plants that I've seen before."

Tomorrow, the campers will return to SFASU and explore more of what future the Lumberjack campus can offer.