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Friday July 12, Day 7 Final Presentations/ Goodbyes By Isaac Ayala Today we were working on our presentations from 8am to 12pm. My research partners and I worked very hard since Wednesday night to make sure our project was well prepared for. Thursday night our project was reviewed and revised intensively. A total of 6 hours was put into this research presentation. My research project was about the LEO project that is here at Biosphere 2. Our researcher, Aaron Bugaj, knew the team was very strong and independent, he knew that we were a great team and could accomplish this research. Presenting our speech wasn’t as easy as we thought, we had to re-evaluate all of our data which wasn’t easy to do. My research partners and I were very frustrated, but knowing that understanding what I was missing was the most important thing. I knew I was making a huge leap in personal growth. Personal growth for me consists of making mistakes over and over again until my final p...
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Thursday July 11, Day 6   University of Arizona C-14 Lab and Dendrochronology A tour of the dendrochronology lab By Ellen Hu Trees have always been a large part of my life.  When I was ten years old, my family visited forests filled with towering sequoias.  When I was thirteen years old, I was heartbroken when a tree in my backyard was cut down.  Even after all of these years, I didn’t truly understand the importance of these plants until today.   While visiting the University of Arizona, our group toured their world-renowned dendrochronology lab.  Dendrochronology is the study of trees to create a chronology of the past that is used by a variety of different sciences.  We started our tour by looking at several different tree ring samples and making observations. Scientists study the tree rings to determine its age as well as other important events that occurred in the area.  Wildfires are perhaps the most c...
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Wednesday July 10, Day 5   Final Research Day/ Practice Presenting Data By Patrick Tran  Today was a busy and productive day for my research group. Before the day even started, I feared that we might not have been able to complete our experiment. We were all frustrated about how to approach the project because our previous plan of action was over complicated and the question we were asking was too broad. When we began our data collection in the morning, we were dreading starting. However, we were feeling slightly more comfortable because on the way to Agrivoltaics, we were able to converse and share our ideas to narrow down the topic. It took some hard thinking but eventually our collaboration to reach the common goal helped us formulate an idea. Agrivoltaics research group in the field  Before our afternoon research, Marielle gave us a refresher on photosynthesis to clear up our misunderstandings. I realized that our group dove straight into data c...
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Tuesday July 9, Day 4   Research/ Trust Workshop Today in Biosphere 2, my research group and I had an eventful and exciting day of research in the savannah biome. We were approaching the question of which soil group would be the most ideal for growing serrano peppers. Our experiment placed each of the different soil types into core samples in which water was added to measure infiltration and retention capabilities. We kicked off right away getting knee deep into our research, mixing our soil compounds and preparing for experimentation. From the start, we were trying to be very organized, which ended up with us creating a table for each of our measurements. We started off with having 7 different measurements! Little did we know, we were straying away from the research question, and focusing more on obtaining data values for our research.  Suddenly, a spark flew through our minds. We were noticing that the values obtained from all the different soil groups were no...
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Monday July 8, Day 3 Research inside Biosphere 2 By Breegan O'Hearn Today we took a tour of Biosphere 2 for the first time. I was thrilled to check the whole building out and I was not disappointed. Standing inside the giant glass building, and seeing the space in which the biospherians lived was surreal. From the inside, the glass walls seemed even more massive and the special care taken to maintain the building was incredible. Prior to experiencing Biosphere 2 I had imagined only being able to look into the different biomes via a glass viewing area. I had no idea we were allowed to walk inside the different environments and experience everything up close. Biosphere 2 is such a unique place and I am so thankful for having the opportunity to visit it. Field research under the solar panels Later, we were placed in our research groups and then we split off to get to work. In our group we were introduced to the study of Algrivoltaics. We started off slow because w...
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Sunday July 7, Day 2 Leadership, Team building and Presentation skills By Jesse Dong Today, we played a game of supporting each other in order to reach a lanyard from a distance without touching the ground. By doing this activity, each of the groups had to come up with ideas on how to get across. This forced us to brainstorm ideas, test each of the different strategies, and see if it was viable. Eventually, we were able to successfully get our group’s lanyards by balancing on one leg and tipping over to the other side while the other members braced the person getting the lanyard. Since this task required a lot of physical contact, I was at first hesitant to do this, but after a while, I saw that completing the task was more important than my introversion. As the group (Zoe, Mya, Jonah, and I) kept trying new ideas to reach our goal, I felt more and more comfortable in doing the activity, and I put more trust in my peers. Looking back, I see this as a learning exp...
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    Saturday July 6, Day 1 Travel Day/ Ice Breakers   By Zoe Ingalls Zoe's view from the plane    After meeting the group at the airport, we traveled to Biosphere 2. For someone who has grown up in a place where you are no more than three kilometers from the ocean at all times, the desert can be jarring. It has such a unique beauty! From the cacti and low lying trees, to the splendor of the mountains in the background, I was in awe. However, I was not only surprised by the beauty of the desert, but by the people I met today.     While taking in my first session about the systems of the Earth at Biosphere 2, I was able to see just how much the instructors and RA's cared about these topics. Even just listening to them speak (ignoring the wild hand gestures and expressions) you could tell that they truly cared about the topic and that they wanted to share their joy with us! Because of this it was easy to stay engaged throughout ...
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