Week Ten: October 27 - November 2

Monday was the beginning of what Brian has told us not to call the GMU sweatshop. It was also the beginning of some rather terrible luck with sewing machines, since Brian's heavy duty machine he brought manifested a bobbin timing error less than 3 hours into our work. It is a newer Singer machine, so I'm not very surprised, but despite my best efforts, I couldn't manage to fix it. So we were making do with L's machine, which was also going well until we ran out of thread on the bobbin for that with only two zippers left to sew on our mesocosms for the day. The bobbin threader on their machine is broken, so we had to stop there. Hopefully by next week, Brian's machine will be fixed, and we can make some more progress.

On Tuesday morning, we talked about how to effectively make and evaluate plans for conservation. I wish it was more surprising to learn that a big reason conservation efforts fail is just... poor planning, but honestly, given some of the disasters I've seen unfold in other fields, it makes sense. We got to learn about some of the different models for mapping systems beyond the OSPC approaches, which was pretty neat. I still don't entirely understand the Theory of Change approach, which focuses on underlying causes/motivating factors, probably because I'm not sure how intricate to make the diagrams. The temptation is to just keep going forever, but that's how you end up with the murder wall all over again.

Wednesday was our journal club, where we discussed the use of adaptive management techniques with endangered caribou. It was a pretty neat topic, though I must admit that I did skim the article more than usual, and I think my contributions to the discussion suffered for it. I liked seeing the analysis of a real, boots-on-the-ground conservation effort, though. The data wasn't nearly as tidy as it 'should' be (sample sizes of 1, I'm looking at you), but the project worked, and that's what really matters. Being able to look at why in more detail can help future projects.

The rest of the day was more conflict resolution with Dr. Fuertes, who was just as delightful as he was last week. We worked through a case study of coyote hunting by watching the documentary Killing Coyote. The documentary itself was quite well done, and the topic... well, let's just say that our discussions at lunch after we watched it were very passionate. I still can't believe that there's a government agency that is, essentially, dedicated to trying to eradicate the coyote. Moreover, I can't believe that they're doing such a terrible job. There's definitely some vindication for me in that, but it's also really depressing. Still, the conversations we had about the different stakeholders, their roles in the conflict, and the various tactics being used were quite enlightening (even if the wasps outside decided that I was the perfect perch). I'm a bit sad that Dr. Fuertes won't be coming back again - he's a great teacher, and he helped me recontextualize a lot the ways that I approach conflicts.

Thursday was, above all else, Halloween! I gave some people a bit of a fright with my vampire costume, including Stephanie when she came in. Worth it.

Class was all about scenario planning, from determining the drivers to living in the scenarios. We wound up selecting climate change severity and rate of population change in the Northern Shenandoah Valley as our drivers, and that meant our four different scenarios were very different; Everything We're Afraid Of All At Once all the way to Sustainable Cow. I really like this approach for figuring out how to handle the problems caused by the intersections of drivers. The imaginative aspect makes it feel a lot more grounded and real, weirdly enough. Something about having to put yourself in the shoes of a you, 50-some years in the future, really makes you think about what you don't want to be living with.

Friday was pleasantly laid back. I met with Jim in the morning to check in (things are good, I'm not super stressed, and I have plans for internships once SERC opens their applications!), and then in the afternoon, we reviewed each other's adaptive management posters. Mine was... very rough. But it's gotten a lot better thanks to the ideas everyone gave. All in all, it was a very pleasant end to the week.