My Morning - Connor

        9:05 AM, I arrive at the town hall of Gothic . Then I am told that we are going to meet Mr. David Lopez and learn about his project. I was very exited at this because I'm interested in the relationship between people and plants, his project is about the effect of road dust on plants.
       9:45 AM  we are at the river, we see the black rock Mr. Lenny tells us about and we sit on it. We fill in the new ranger (Kat) about ourselves and the camp. We are directed back to town hall and when we get back we eat our snack and discuss our findings and teachings on our expedition this morning.

This Morning July 20 - Beca

This morning I walked into the town hall but there was only one person form my group. Once everyone arrived it all went by fairly quick. Everyone got ready to go meet Mr. David Lopez, he works for Dr. Nick Wasser and Dr. Mary Price. We were seeing if road dust would affect the           polyngrains on the plant we call Skyrocket. We learned that the furthest the plant is from the road, the more polyngrains the plant would have. The closer the plant is to the road the bigger the chance the plant has to die. 

7/13 Galls, Sloths, Photosynthesis, Cliff Swallows, Fossil Beds.

 Ian Billick visited with the rangers to discuss his job as the director of RMBL as well as his work with ants and mutualism..

Ian left our rangers with a research question.  Are Sloths able to photosynthesize or is the photo synthesis process occurring on their backs a case of mutualism?  

 Our field study today was concerned with drawing and watching our resident cliff swallows.

 The willow tree between the town hall and the visitor's center is host to several types of plant galls.

 Mites will hatch from these, more later.

 After lunch the rangers hiked up to the fossil beds, Oliver is preparing a photo exhibit of the fossils the rangers found for his Gothic Geology study.

Invasive plant Pics

All in a days work for a RMBL Ranger

Field Studies

Very well done acrostic poem

July 6th Pics

RMBL Rangers Removing Invasive plants on the road to the billy barr center.  Summer intern Marcus shows the RMBL Rangers the right technique and which plants to pull out.

Jenny was very generous with her time, she talked to the Rangers about her restoration work in downtown Gothic,

July 6th Ranger Activity

Journal Entry July 6^th – Emma P.

Today I started off my day by getting on the bus at 9:00 am, going to Gothic, Colorado. I was going to a camp called RMBL also known as the Rocky, Mountain, Biological, Labs. We started the camp off by picking invasive weeds. We walked around with Jenny Reithel who is a scientist here. We went around and picked the invasive weed Yellow Toad Flax. We learned how to get rid of weeds. You can pull them, use pesticides, or harmful pesticides, you can also use insects. One other way to get rid of invasive plants is called Bio Control. Bio Control is where you take native bugs to the invasive plant where they eat the plant. The cons of Bio Control are that the bugs might eat everything else before they eat the invasive plant. Some ways the invasive plants can get to other places are overseas, animal scat, can get stuck to clothing, and lastly can travel by car. While we were picking the invasive weeds the weather was very nice. It is a partly cloudy day about 60 degrees. It is just so beautiful here in Gothic Colorado. As I look around a see an abundance of wild flowers, yellow. Purple, blue, and green. I am just so very blessed to be here in such a beautiful place.


Two Poems From Connor

Haiku

When the plants come in

We have to pull them so they

Don’t come back again

Poem

You have to pull the bad weeds

Because it’s something we don’t need

It may not be their home

But they take over the small biome

We have to pull them out

So we can study about

What they do

So we don’t have to go through 

The pain to research

With using google search

                                        Journal entry. RMBL Sophie S.

                Today I started my day at RMBL getting off the bus around 9:00 a.m. We walked to Town Hall and met the scientist we worked with, Jenny Reithel. Jenny talked to us about invasive, non-invasive, native and non-invasive plants. After we took some notes and talked a little more, we took a walk and pulled the Yellow Toad Flax, which is an invasive plant. There are many different ways to deal with invasive plants. The first one is what we did, pulling them up, another way is weed killer, and insects actually work too. An insect like a caterpillar eats away the plant little by little. And the last way is Bio Control. After we helped out Jenny with the invasive plants, we came back and had snack, and started writing these journal entries. I can’t wait for what else we will do today! I have had so much fun already, and am so lucky to be able to have this experience.

A Poem by Nola

Paradise of Birds

Hidden just beyond sight

Is a metropolis

Of birds

Of all kinds

And they share

This paradise

Equally

All but the crows

And mosquitoes

Who interrupt

The finches

And red-winged black birds

And bluebirds

And all their friends

As they serenade

The community

In their

Mystifying

And glorious

Language

That has

Forever

Enchanted man