Field Trips to the Coast & Forest

Hey all!

The first week since coming back from Spring Break has been, as expected, quite busy, and this past weekend featured two all-day field trips (8am-7pm) with my Oceanography and Hydrology classes. Beyond normal lab-sessions, field trips at LC help us connect the dots from the academic world to the real world.



On Friday, we got a special tour of the closed-access Bull Run River and dams. The history of this forested area is pretty interesting, and since half of it is undisturbed old-growth forest, there were critters and plantlife abound! We saw a black bear and a few deer, not to mention all kinds of bugs and plants typical of a healthy forest.
My hydrology class has spent the past semester working with data from a data station located at Bull Run, so it was great actually seeing the station with our own eyes - akin to meeting a famous person in our class's eyes.

On Saturday, the Oceanography crew headed to the Oregon coast to study coastal erosion under the guidance of the author of one of our class books - a really special opportunity. We got to go sightseeing through a big portion of the southern coast and all its beauty on a killer warm spring day. Ocean critters were great to observe at Yaquina Head during low-tide and added to the interdisciplinary nature of LC's Oceanography course.



Questions, comments, in Portland for the weekend? Tag me @jayhidekichu on instagram or email me at jaychu@lclark.edu

Cheers everybody! Jay

About me: Transfer sophomore Lewis & Clark College. Major: Environmental Studies, Minor: Japanese