Kayla Hira and Kaden Melton matched with Blue Heron Nature Preserve (BHNP) this semester. Learning from Denise Cardin and other members of the team at Blue Heron, they set up weather stations in different parts of the preserve to learn about the environmental impact of urban forests and wetlands. They also performed a survey of trees at both of their homes and GSU’s downtown campus. Learn about their project, the data they collected, and the stakes of this information below:
Hey, everyone. Unfortunately, this week I do not have any major updates. The previous week, Kayla and I discovered that the director, Denise, was sick, so we could only take measurements from the weather station. Also, this week I could not go to the preserve due to conflicting obligations, so I have no personal updates. However, Kayla told me that she once again recorded measurements from the weather stations. Even though these past two weeks have not been ideal in terms of what we were able to do, I am looking forward to our remaining time with Blue Heron Nature Preserve and creating our presentation, which will include our i-Tree Canopy survey, weather station results, and what these results could mean for protection against climate change.
This week for our time at Blue Heron Nature Preserve, we were putting up our weathering stations that we made for the woodlands and Riparian/Wetlands. To make the signs, I painted them with both the GSU and Blue Heron logo as well as the descriptions of all the measurements we were required to track in these upcoming weeks. I learned a lot about weather implementations and what Denise wanted us to track which were things like hygrometers which measure humidity and anemometers which measure wind speeds. It was very interesting researching all the elements of weather and correspondence of areas of more moist environments like wetlands, having a higher or lower chance of wind speeds than dryer areas like woodlands. Then my partner Kaden, put the signs together and we took them to the preserve and put them up one at a time. It was such an amazing experience seeing our creation actually be a part of the Blue Heron Nature Preserve because it is us showing a difference that we care about the environment how important weathering tracking is to the environment and the different ways the community can regulate it. In these upcoming weeks, we will be periodically going to the preserve to track the wind speeds, rainfall, humidity, and other forms of weather tracking for our final project.
While we were there this past week, Denise was planting some more native plants in the preserve and let us help in planting them. The plant in question was a Fringed Champion (Seline Polypetala), which is a rare species of flowering plant that is native to Georgia and is becoming more and more endangered. Denise explained to us that these were on the High Priority list of plants in the Georiga Department of Wildlife and Natural Resources which means they are at a high risk of becoming extinct in their natural habitats. The main reason that Fringed Champion is on the high-priority list is because of degradation and loss of suitable habitats. With the increasing gentrification and urban areas, a lot of native plant species in Georgia have been killed or are on the cusp of being extinct, which opened our eyes to the fact that we need to help spaces like preserves and natural from being ruined.
This is a photo of one of our weathering stations!
Hello, everyone on the blog post. Since this is my first post, I will introduce myself. My name is Kaden Melton and I was partnered with the Blue Heron Nature Preserve, along with Kayla. For the past couple of weeks, our main objective has been completing a weather station for the preserve. As part of our community project, we built a wooden weather station that would measure various aspects of the environment, such as rain level, humidity, temperature, and CO2, in two different ecosystems, allowing us to compare them to each other and their potential effect against climate change.
To build this weather station, we went through various phases. The first and easiest phase was planning the design and layout of the station. We completed this in under 20 minutes and decided that we would make a station with a front-facing sign and a shelf on top to hold some of the measuring instruments. The face of the sign would also contain descriptions of the purpose of the various instruments attached to the station, as well as both the GSU and Blue Heron Nature Preserve logos. The second phase of the project was to build it. I was responsible for actually assembling the structure, so I went stumbling around Home Depot trying to find the right type of wood and screws to buy. After getting the proper materials, I went home and assembled the structure. After finishing the structure, I gave it to Kayla to paint the sign, including writing the descriptions and painting the logos. Once the signs were finished, we returned to our partner next week to put the stakes on the station and put them in the ground, but we ran into difficulties.
We didn’t have the proper tools to drill the screws into the stakes, resulting in the screws getting excessively hot and starting to smoke, eventually leading to the drill dying on us completely. Since we could not finish the signs that day, I took the signs and the stakes home and finished them over the weekend. We came back the following week, aka this week, and we were able to successfully install the stations in the ground and take our first measurements. After all the time we invested into the stations, finally being able to successfully install them was an extremely satisfying feeling, and I’m excited to begin the other half of our project.
Kaden and I visited the Blue Heron Nature Preserve in person on Thursday to meet with Denise, the operations director of the preserve, as well as some of the team like Melody the executive director. Denise was very lovely and talked to us about our goals and why we wanted to choose Blue Heron as our main service organization, which was to help volunteer and give back to the community as well as expand our knowledge about environmental conservation. My main goal and aspiration is hopefully to continue to work with the organization a couple of times in the summer if I have the time, to fully grasp all aspects of environmental organizations and to help push knowledge about the environment. We talked about the different types of environments that Blue Heron has to offer, with riparian, meadows, wetlands, and woodlands, and how each of them combine to make Blue Heron a hidden spot in the heart of Buckhead. Melody and Denise both touched on how they wanted to expand and push the knowledge of Blue Heron onto different levels of generations to come and observe and travel through different parts of nature right in the city. We went on a walk throughout part of the woodlands and riparians, to see the different environmental works they have been preserving and planting, especially native plant species. Denise talked about the importance of native planting and preservation because of invasive species invading Georgia. One of the most prevalent we saw on our walk was the English Ivy, which crowds an abundance of trees and lower plants, cutting off their ability to have vital nutrients from the soil. For one of the weeks, we will be cutting down and removing some of the English Ivy in hopes of preventing further spread of the plant. One of the most interesting things was the information about the riparian, with the addition of two creeks, the Nancy and Mill Creek, which run through the preserve. Finding out about riparians, which I had no clue what they were before, was very interesting. This was brought into one of the service project ideas about having weathering stations to track various aspects of temperature and rainfall was an idea that we are hoping to fulfill for each part of the 4 areas of Blue Heron. All in all, I am very excited to see what kinds of things we are going to do in the upcoming weeks for the preserve and how that will tie into spreading awareness and helping Blue Heron.
These are some pictures from our walk!
My name is Kaden Melton and I’m a sophomore majoring in finance. I selected this course because I enjoy doing volunteer service and wanted to be more involved, so I thought taking a class designed to do volunteer service was an ideal situation for me. So far in the class, I have become a lot more aware of the impacts of pollution outside of its negative impacts on the planet. I learned that the damage done to the environment is a lot more intertwined with the harm done to other people who live alongside the impacted natural spaces than I originally considered. The harm inflicted on these individuals can last longer than the individuals originally impacted, and health impairments can become hereditary traits passed down for generations, even if the future generations are far removed from the polluted environment in which their parent or grandparent originally inhabited.
After reading the different literature this semester, I am even more excited to begin my volunteer work. The organization that I’ve been assigned to work with is the Blue Heron Nature Preserve. The Blue Heron Nature Preserve is an organization that is dedicated to maintaining the 30 acres of natural habitat under their care, which includes meadows, woodlands, wetlands, riparian, and all the organisms involved in the ecosystem. I was interested in joining this organization because their efforts concentrate on physically interacting with nature and the land and that is an aspect of volunteer work that I highly value. I want to be in intimate contact with the community that I’m serving, essentially I want to get my hands dirty. Through this volunteer experience, I’m hoping to get a better understanding of the different ecosystems at the preserve and walk away with a more profound appreciation for nature and all that it has to offer and experience.