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Well folks, three weeks have gone by here in Yap, with only one more to go before we head home.
To dispel the, let's for the sake of argument call it, myth, that we're over here just sunning on the beach and SCUBA diving (don't let our tans fool you — we got that all while doing field work), we thought we'd share a bit about some of the work projects we've accomplished thus far.
We've completed three projects that are continuations of research conducted by earlier student groups, all of which involved students and faculty working with local counterparts.
The first was looking at the effects of tropical sunlight on human skin, while the second involved observing underwater wildlife. (Oh wait, I wasn't supposed to write that. Let me make something up that sounds more scientific and less fun. Take 2.)
The first was using GPS to map all the fires that have occurred on island over the past year. The information we gather helps the locals with their fire management plan, and the data we collected will be used to test the accuracy of their fire risk assessment for various habitats on island. (That's much better, let's go with that, shall we?)
The second project used GPS to map the locations of an invasive grass species. These maps help the local Forest Service return to known areas of infestation and monitor the effectiveness of their eradication efforts.
The third project was creating beach profiles for areas of the coast that are at high risk from erosion, to help track the rate of erosion over time. Students have really enjoyed interacting with the locals and even picking up a few Yapese words.
In addition to these old projects, we're also helping out with a couple of new projects. The first new project is assisting with water quality monitoring of local streams. The other project is monitoring seagrass health before proposed dredging activity along the coast. We'll follow this up next year with a post-dredging survey to see if there was any effect on the seagrass beds.
In addition to the all the above work, we're also finding time to play. Last weekend we took a boat tour around the islands where we fished, snorkeled, and had fun jumping off of the boat. A few of us also got in another SCUBA trip to an amazing place called Yap Caverns, an area of coral ridges and valleys that survived the typhoon largely intact.
Until next time!
— Jeff Steinmetz | 
