Day 6: Today rocked

July 12th/day6 

I don't know how but today topped all of the other days by far. Like always Jessica woke us up at an ungodly hour to dress up, make lunch and eat breakfast, and like always I was running late. The good thing is that since nobody wanted to do the “boring” science survey our van was pretty empty, it was only me, Maria Jonathan, Jessica, and her cousin David. Since our group was so small we even got a chance to visit a store.  We had to split up into groups and I thought would use this to gain a little bit of experience in the hands-on side of science. What we did was survey an area to look for a rare plant called Pumice moonwort. At a wildlife refuge. We met botanist Charmaine powers and Marlo fishier who was also an invasive species manager. Together they help monitor plant life around the eastern part of Newbery caldera what was really cool about the area that they monitor is that it is right next to what used to be a volcano which means the ground is made up of a cool mix of some pretty cool minerals. 

pumice moonwort

When we were about to get started we were told that hats were probably a good idea. I turned around to Jessica and she was just laughing because she didn't mention the hat situation of anyone.  

We looked around searching for the plant which was only about 2 inches in length, somehow within 3 minutes of looking we found one. As the day progressed we found many more, the whole experience was actually really fun. Jessica partnered the high school students with the university students, so it was a bit scary at first because I had to act like an actual adult for a while.  

She made us search for the plant in a straight line, I kept breaking formation so by the end of the search it felt like I was the person being mentored because the person who I got partnered up with, which was Priscilla, had to keep reminding me to stay in line. That whole experience was a lot of fun we ended up collecting about 241 plants in total. The area we searched was only about thirty percent of the actual area that was previously surveyed, the cool part was that twenty years ago when they last collected data they only found about 500 plants which means that this year the numbers are expected to go up which is cool to know.  

  

After the search, we broke for lunch and Jessica said that we would go looking for somewhere to swim and shower. We ended up going to the east lake to swim, all anyone really did was dip their feet in the water which was kind of boring but the, to be honest, the water was a bit cold. The showers were actually really cool the man in charge even opened up an extra shower so we could finish quicker. He was very kind. 

East lake 

On the way out, Mack found a huge obsidian rock, when we all saw it we all ran to the area where she had found it which was filled with piles of dirt. We all looked for a good 15 minutes but gave up and headed to the van because we knew that the next destination was going to be a lot of fun because the place would be filled with obsidian. 

My new friend Maria and me " Rockin out " 

Our great view of the obsidian rocks

A few minutes after we got into the van we found ourselves at obsidian flow which was a spot where a volcanic lava flow occurred millions of years ago leaving behind the obsidian and pumice we see today. We all loved walking through the huge glass like rocks, but it seemed like the one that was having the most fun out of all of us was Jessica. I had a great time but unfortunately tripped coming down from a hill and cut myself...that hurt. 

The great part about being in such a small group all day is that Jessica gives us a little more freedom. We got a chance to stop at a gas station and buy dinner which was great because what we ended up having back at camp was not too appetizing.