Field Methods

INTRODUCTION A custom project was assigned to address a geographic question of the students' choosing. The objective chosen was to track beavers and their associated ecological impacts on a property in Ogema, WI to determine whether beaver genocide is justified. Beavers have frequented this property (see Figure 1) for the past couple years and through generations have migrated northwest, reshaping the landscape along the way. Figure 1: Area of Interest Although beavers can bring positives to the environment, their actions can often cause unwanted side-effects and diminishing value of the landscape. Many poplar, birch, and occasionally oak and maple trees are chewed down. Often times these fallen trees cause additional damage and prevent future growth to the nearby trees. Damming of ponds and digging trenches to transport wood causes directed flooding to otherwise dry property. This causes already established trees to die from being submerged in the new waterline.  ...

INTRODUCTION For this exercise, navigation of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire's Priory and Children's Nature Center was achieved using a GPS device and coordinates and then using a UTM map and compass. The purpose was to simulate accurate navigation in challenging conditions and terrain during field work. The priory is a wooded, hilly lot owned by the UW-Eau Claire on the Southwest side of Eau Claire, Wisconsin (see Figure 1). The fieldwork was performed on November 4th, 2007 on a rainy morning. Figure 1: The area of interest for the Field Navigation Exercise METHODS GPS and Coordinate Navigation The first round of navigation used a Bad Elf GPS unit and specified coordinates to find marked trees located in the Priory. The class was split into five groups, each with separate UTM coordinates. The coordinates listed below are for Group 1: 1. 617713, 4958075 2. 617767, 4958224 3. 617640, 4958159 4. 617553, 4958074 5. 617579, 4957938 Each group track...