Day 5

Starting to get a bit more relaxed. After a few days of wall to wall lectures today we finally decided which groups we would be in for the trip. In the morning we had a lecture from Dr. Lipo about his studies on Easter Island and how they related to what we may be doing on Kauai. After that we were given time to consider our options, then submit our preferences between the three groups (agricultural fields/archaeology, hydrology, or vegetation). After some deliberation we were told our groups. I picked vegetation, as I am less interested in hydrology and archaeology, and I really hope to gain a better understanding of how to use the eCognition software to classify land coverage. Of what we have seen so far that would be the skill that would most appeal to me to look more into. After lunch we met in our smaller groups for a (very) brief intro to what we’d be doing. We were then set loose to do some research. None of us really knew what to do so we ended up not going much besides downloading a few shapefiles and looking for some general readings.
On a personal note, after the days work a friend from my study abroad came down from La Canada so we went out to an 80’s night (after our group pizza party) and had a lovely evening.