Field Notes

Safety

Before any field explorations or laboratory work,

safety comes first.

We will be looking at safety for different tasks in varied environments.

Safety has two basic components: preventing incidents from occurring and responding effectively. A way to prevent incidents is to develop a safety checklist.

Include in your safety checklist:

Safety procedures for both the laboratory (indoors) and field (outdoors).
Personalized procedures for your location and equipment available. For example, if you use electrical equipment near water in your bathroom, that probably needs a line in your checklist.

This is Lesley’s checklist. Some of the things are personal based on past experiences.

You can adopt any procedures/ideas that seem appropriate for your use. You are designing a checklist for your own locations, situations, and personal behaviors.

Your safety checklist can have headers, or a different organization. Whatever makes it most effective for use.

Avoid potentially hazardous situations, even if it means missing a photo or video opportunity.
Consider the safety of other people and animals at all times, especially our cats.
Clean up work spaces, don’t leave any potentially dangerous materials behind.
Communicate any safety concerns to Mark or whoever else may be involved.
Follow safety directions on signs, in activities, and on product labels.
Carry a safety kit everywhere, all the time.
Wasp sting? Immediately take benadryl and prednisone. Epipen if necessary.
Seek medical assistance if at all unsure about treatment.
Wear gloves when needed; wash hands frequently.
Wear a mask, especially while working around potential rodent feces.
Wear protective footwear and clothing, including sun hats and long sleeves.
Watch loose hair and clothing around animals, chemicals, and flames.
Wear safety goggles or other protective eyewear when working with chemicals or walking along trails with low-lying branches.
Take breaks, avoid over-exertion and use cane even if feeling great.
Avoid “playing” with animals to reduce chance of unintentional injury (to me and/or the animals).
It should be obvious, but don’t taste or smell without care to reduce hazard.
Don’t eat or drink around chemicals, animals, or waste products.
Add new safety procedures when needed.

We also recommend carrying a safety kit at all times when completing lab and field work. Pre-made kits are inexpensive and readily available; the materials in this video cost less than $20 and last a long time.

Field Kit

Field work preparation includes acquisition of key equipment and materials. A field kit is a logical bridge between planning and data collection on location.

Here is a tour of one of our field kits.

Sometimes the best field gear is the least expensive or most commonplace.

A bucket can be used to carry equipment, store wet samples, and substitute for work as a stool.

Keep it simple: the easier to carry and assemble, the more likely you are to use it in the field.

Field Kits

Recipe for an effective kit:

Can be carried over a distance comfortably
Weather proof, including high temperatures and rain
Animal-proof, food and scented items in plastic bags or containers
Enough water and food for an unexpectedly long trip

Microscopy

Magnification extends human perception and new technologies make microscopes more affordable than ever. Learn more about microscopy and inexpensive options for field work.

The earliest optical or “light” microscopes date back to the seventeenth century, magnifying specimens beyond the range of normal human vision.

Early magnification was approximately 10x, or ten times the unaided eye, now microscopes that shine light through specimens can magnify over 1500x and electron microscopes developed in the 20th century magnify 200,000x. Most of the research topics discussed in this course requiring microscopic examination, or “microscopy,” would use an optical “light” microscope.

A bright light shines through a thin tissue of cells and finely ground glasses magnify the image. Both the eye pieces and specialized lenses called “objectives” magnify. From this image, if you have a 10x eye piece and a 10x objective, what is the total magnification?

answer: 100x

The bright light can make specimens look clear and colorless, so pigments or stains are often used to color certain parts of cells and the tissues they form.

Here are a few basics on glass lenses and light sources in microscopes, as well as staining of animal tissues in microscope slide preparation

Microscopy has played a critical role in the advancement of many fields, including medicine. This display includes antique microscopes and slides used by a country physician.

You don’t need an expensive microscope to observe organisms. Here we are using a phone to magnify.

Owls

This is a journaling adventure post! Travel to visit owls in various habitats. Sketch the owls in the videos, take notes on what you learn, and plan a trip to visit owls at a rehabilitation center.

We’re going to use owls as an example of species differences related to habitat.

We’re going to look at three different species of owls:

one that live in the high desert

one that lives at elevation in snowy tundra

and one that lives in old-growth coniferous forests

What type(s) of structural or behavioral differences do you expect to see?

There are a variety of owl species in the PNW (Pacific northwest), including the burrowing owl, snowy owl (an occasional visitor), and spotted owl.

Burrowing owls are small owls that nest underground in the high desert. Their feathers are a dusty soil color.

This owl lives at the High Desert Museum in Bend Oregon.

Snowy owls have white feathers that camouflage them from potential prey. They primarily live in the sub-arctic but also occasionally travel south into Oregon.

This owl lives at the Cascades Raptor Center In Eugene Oregon.

The threatened spotted owl has a mottled feather pattern that camouflages it in coniferous (evergreen needle) tree branches.

Photo source: 
Shutterstock subscription

Owls leave evidence of what they have been eating in their habitats. These pellets are from owls that live in the Willamette Valley prairie and oak savannah. We routinely find them along our trails.

Owl pellets not only indicate what an owl eats and the types of small animals that live in their range, they also give clues about the overall habitat the animals are found within.

Preloading Journals

Field Journals are not just about taking notes on location, you can “pre-load” them with maps, images, and information to enhance your experience in the field.

Art journaling, using journals as a form of expression, has crossed paths with science field notes to produce beautiful pieces that have been displayed in gallery exhibits around the world. You can find used books filled with tips about nature journaling at most book stores.

Stewardship

Stewardship is defined as taking care of something or someone. It implies responsibility for others, sometimes for extended periods of time.

We recommend considering the following stewardship principles:

Minimize negative impacts on animals, including observing instead of collecting whenever possible.
Minimize negative impact on habitats by keeping to trails if available, and removing any garbage.
Minimize negative impact on other people by including their safety and well-being in your procedures.

Safety is related to stewardship. During this video, think about how safely handling dog scat (fecal material) is a form of stewardship for other dogs and possibly people.

Pet Protection

As you are developing a safety plan for your own field experiences, it is a good exercise to develop a safety plan for any pets, based on their environmental needs. That can include acceptable ranges of temperatures, water needs, nutrient needs, and potential risks (like cars and fecal materials). Apply your skills to a wider range of applications.

Inferences

When we observe something, collecting data with our senses, we immediately start making inferences. An inference is an interpretation of sensory information based on prior knowledge.

For example, you may make observations and inferences about these corn seedlings:

Visual observations:

the plants on the left are white
the plants on the left are shorter than the plants on the right

Inferences:

the plants on the left are less healthy than the plants on the right
the plants are different genetically

The white corn seedlings on the left have a mutation (difference in DNA) that makes them unable to produce the green pigments that support photosynthesis, and they will all die as soon as they run out of nutrients that were stored in the corn kernel.

Write down observations and inferences about the fish in this video.

What did you come up with?

Frequent observations:

the fish are moving along surfaces
the fish are in a group later in the video

Frequent inferences:

the fish are looking for food,
the fish are looking for food together

This group of catfsh (Genus Corydoras) often hunt for food together, as they likely are in this video.

The risk of inference is that if either your observational abilities or prior knowledge are limited, the inference may be incorrect.

For example: fruit flies are hard to see because they are small and most people do not have a lot of prior knowledge about fruit flies, other than the annoyance of having a swarm of fruit flies around rotting fruit on a kitchen counter.

Write down observations and inferences about the fruit flies in this video (taken with a phone).

What did you come up with?

Observations may include the red color of their eyes, brown color of their body, that some were flying, some were sitting, and so on.

The inferences are where it gets really interesting. What do you think they are doing? Your brain will try to relate the observed behaviors to behaviors previously observed in other animals.

Adult fruit flies clean their wings frequently (see on the right in the video) and also communicate frequently, as seen in the group to the left.

To be able to infer in a new situation means being open to possibilities, including the possibility that a small insect like a fruit fly has social behaviors.

Field Work

Field work is the term used for research outside of the laboratory or library. This means leaving the controlled and convenient lab setting for the unpredictable complexity of nature.

In the field, new variables can be found, and hypotheses can be tested in real-world conditions.

Let’s start with an overview of field work considerations.

Field Work

Effective planning includes:

Selection of locations that provide information (data) on research organisms
Minimal cost in fuel and equipment wear and tear
A schedule of tasks to be completed
A materials list, including necessary field kits
Safety considerations specific to the location

While conducting field work, pay special attention to traffic. People often see what they expect to see, and a driver may not expect to see you along a road.

Note: there is a dead animal at the end of this video.

Follow posted signs and directions

We don’t always have all of the information about a location. Assume warnings are posted for a reason.

Field Notes

Before any field explorations or laboratory work,

safety comes first.

We will be looking at safety for different tasks in varied environments.

Safety has two basic components: preventing incidents from occurring and responding effectively. A way to prevent incidents is to develop a safety checklist.

Include in your safety checklist:

Safety procedures for both the laboratory (indoors) and field (outdoors).

Personalized procedures for your location and equipment available. For example, if you use electrical equipment near water in your bathroom, that probably needs a line in your checklist.

This is Lesley’s checklist. Some of the things are personal based on past experiences.

You can adopt any procedures/ideas that seem appropriate for your use. You are designing a checklist for your own locations, situations, and personal behaviors.

Your safety checklist can have headers, or a different organization. Whatever makes it most effective for use.

We also recommend carrying a safety kit at all times when completing lab and field work. Pre-made kits are inexpensive and readily available; the materials in this video cost less than $20 and last a long time.

Field work preparation includes acquisition of key equipment and materials. A field kit is a logical bridge between planning and data collection on location.

Here is a tour of one of our field kits.

Sometimes the best field gear is the least expensive or most commonplace.

A bucket can be used to carry equipment, store wet samples, and substitute for work as a stool.

Keep it simple: the easier to carry and assemble, the more likely you are to use it in the field.

Field Kits

Recipe for an effective kit:

Magnification extends human perception and new technologies make microscopes more affordable than ever. Learn more about microscopy and inexpensive options for field work.

The earliest optical or “light” microscopes date back to the seventeenth century, magnifying specimens beyond the range of normal human vision.

A bright light shines through a thin tissue of cells and finely ground glasses magnify the image. Both the eye pieces and specialized lenses called “objectives” magnify. From this image, if you have a 10x eye piece and a 10x objective, what is the total magnification?

The bright light can make specimens look clear and colorless, so pigments or stains are often used to color certain parts of cells and the tissues they form.

Here are a few basics on glass lenses and light sources in microscopes, as well as staining of animal tissues in microscope slide preparation

Microscopy has played a critical role in the advancement of many fields, including medicine. This display includes antique microscopes and slides used by a country physician.

You don’t need an expensive microscope to observe organisms. Here we are using a phone to magnify.

This is a journaling adventure post! Travel to visit owls in various habitats. Sketch the owls in the videos, take notes on what you learn, and plan a trip to visit owls at a rehabilitation center.

We’re going to use owls as an example of species differences related to habitat.

We’re going to look at three different species of owls:

one that live in the high desert

one that lives at elevation in snowy tundra

and one that lives in old-growth coniferous forests

What type(s) of structural or behavioral differences do you expect to see?

There are a variety of owl species in the PNW (Pacific northwest), including the burrowing owl, snowy owl (an occasional visitor), and spotted owl.

Burrowing owls are small owls that nest underground in the high desert. Their feathers are a dusty soil color.

This owl lives at the High Desert Museum in Bend Oregon.

Snowy owls have white feathers that camouflage them from potential prey. They primarily live in the sub-arctic but also occasionally travel south into Oregon.

This owl lives at the Cascades Raptor Center In Eugene Oregon.

The threatened spotted owl has a mottled feather pattern that camouflages it in coniferous (evergreen needle) tree branches.

Owls leave evidence of what they have been eating in their habitats. These pellets are from owls that live in the Willamette Valley prairie and oak savannah. We routinely find them along our trails.

Owl pellets not only indicate what an owl eats and the types of small animals that live in their range, they also give clues about the overall habitat the animals are found within.

Field Journals are not just about taking notes on location, you can “pre-load” them with maps, images, and information to enhance your experience in the field.

Art journaling, using journals as a form of expression, has crossed paths with science field notes to produce beautiful pieces that have been displayed in gallery exhibits around the world. You can find used books filled with tips about nature journaling at most book stores.

Stewardship is defined as taking care of something or someone. It implies responsibility for others, sometimes for extended periods of time.

We recommend considering the following stewardship principles:

Minimize negative impacts on animals, including observing instead of collecting whenever possible.

Minimize negative impact on habitats by keeping to trails if available, and removing any garbage.

Minimize negative impact on other people by including their safety and well-being in your procedures.

Safety is related to stewardship. During this video, think about how safely handling dog scat (fecal material) is a form of stewardship for other dogs and possibly people.

Pet Protection

When we observe something, collecting data with our senses, we immediately start making inferences. An inference is an interpretation of sensory information based on prior knowledge.

For example, you may make observations and inferences about these corn seedlings:

Visual observations:

Inferences:

The white corn seedlings on the left have a mutation (difference in DNA) that makes them unable to produce the green pigments that support photosynthesis, and they will all die as soon as they run out of nutrients that were stored in the corn kernel.

Write down observations and inferences about the fish in this video.

What did you come up with?

Frequent observations:

the fish are moving along surfaces

the fish are in a group later in the video

Frequent inferences:

the fish are looking for food,

the fish are looking for food together

This group of catfsh (Genus Corydoras) often hunt for food together, as they likely are in this video.

The risk of inference is that if either your observational abilities or prior knowledge are limited, the inference may be incorrect.

For example: fruit flies are hard to see because they are small and most people do not have a lot of prior knowledge about fruit flies, other than the annoyance of having a swarm of fruit flies around rotting fruit on a kitchen counter.

Write down observations and inferences about the fruit flies in this video (taken with a phone).

What did you come up with?

Observations may include the red color of their eyes, brown color of their body, that some were flying, some were sitting, and so on.

The inferences are where it gets really interesting. What do you think they are doing? Your brain will try to relate the observed behaviors to behaviors previously observed in other animals.

Adult fruit flies clean their wings frequently (see on the right in the video) and also communicate frequently, as seen in the group to the left.

To be able to infer in a new situation means being open to possibilities, including the possibility that a small insect like a fruit fly has social behaviors.

Field work is the term used for research outside of the laboratory or library. This means leaving the controlled and convenient lab setting for the unpredictable complexity of nature.

In the field, new variables can be found, and hypotheses can be tested in real-world conditions.

Let’s start with an overview of field work considerations.

Field Work

Effective planning includes:

While conducting field work, pay special attention to traffic. People often see what they expect to see, and a driver may not expect to see you along a road.

Follow posted signs and directions

We don’t always have all of the information about a location. Assume warnings are posted for a reason.