Spring Term in Yellowstone
Four Washington and Lee undergraduates have spent 12 days in Yellowstone National Park this month, but they are not your run-of-the-mill tourists. The four, along with W&L biology professor Bill Hamilton, are conducting some serious scientific research as part of their spring term course, which has the rather unromantic title “Plant Functional Ecology.”
This is the fourth trip that Bill and W&L students have made to this site.
Once again, you can join their travels and follow their work on their blog, their Facebook page or both. In either case, you’ll find some interesting and varied commentary on everything from the weather (yes, it’s snowed) to their travel problems (naturally, the flight from Roanoke was delayed by a mechanical problem), the science (what are the potential nitrification rates?) to the sights (grizzlies and bison and bighorn sheep).
So check out the blog or become a Facebook fan of the course. Both pages have some cool video of a couple of grizzlies. Or look at the photos on their Picasa page.
