Week One--Everyone met Mark Johnsson as he told us about the format and structure of the ESI. The format of the project was inquiry based with emphasis on research to answer our environmental questions. Paul Burchard described the institute product. It was so exciting to find out we would be publishing our project right on the Internet. Susan Blunck encouraged us to make student learning personal meaningful and relevant. We then quickly took a walking tour of Princeton. The week's schedule involved hurriedly finding sessions involving computer work, brainstorming, forming questions, and hypothesis for our project. Denise gave us an overview of STELLA, a simulation computer model on global change. Many of us became busy tourists over the weekend. We also had an on hands field plankton lab presented by Sherwood Hall from the FDA at Lake Carnegie. The weekend ended with a warm Princeton welcome!
Week Two---We feel more comfortable with directions and short cuts to class. Most team members participated in either GREEN or GLOBE. Some team members worked on team projects. Bob Ford showed slides of different interesting geographical locations and introduced GIS. John Snow introduced hands on modules of AAG. Topics included were land use, population, and other global issues. Many people took advantages of the weekend off to travel to New York City, Atlantic City, Philadelphia and the beautiful New Jersey beaches.
Week Three---We were off to do fieldwork around Hightstown! Mark demonstrated experimental techniques for collecting data and figuring soil erosion by studying runoff and bed loading in local land sheds. We visited Rocky Brook and Bear Brook to do sampling. We met several people in this community and they were satisfied with local watershed quality. We talked about continuing our soil erosion research back home and plan to share data analysis. Dick Arnold taught us the old-fashioned way of how to determine soil density in different areas so we will be able to transfer our projects home. He also directed us to our local Natural Resource offices (formally known as the Soil Conservation Service) that would have soil densities in our own state and counties. We also enjoyed Dick Arnold's slide presentations on various soil conditions from all over the world. Arthur Bowman, our biology expert, explained how to properly analyze our results in our project write-up. Our team benefited greatly from the expert consultants that were available on a one-to-one basis.
Week Four -- Our last week! We were all excited about going home and counted the days. On Monday and Tuesday we learned much from our fellow colleagues. A few of us also were able to break free to listen to Eric Wieschaus, the 1995 Nobel Prize Winner in Medicine and Physiology. He was a guest speaker for the Biology institute and talked about his research on fruit fly embryos (Yes!- fruit flies do have embryos--those people at his lecture will get that comment). Wednesday and Thursday projects were presented. Thursday night our reception, banquet and other festivities. Friday our last good-byes and off to the airport, cars, and train stations.
In closing, team 51-- Tracey Dickerson, Barbara Errington, and Babette Stephen, would like to express our thanks and gratitude to the Woodrow Wilson Foundation for allowing us to come together to work on this project. We appreciate the efforts put forward by Mary Apodaco, Mark Johnsson, Fe Dumapias, Mary Strother, and all the other faulty members. A special thanks to Paul Burchard and a special, special thanks to John Sacco for their patience in helping us get this project on the Net.