Project Work and Jungle Bash

14 July 2013

We went all the way up to the Sky Walk at the south of Sitou after the morning lecture of soil diversity by Dr. Lin. I was glad that the typhoon came and went quickly and did not do much damage to Sitou. The Sky Walk is about 30 meters above the ground and everybody crossed it without fear, probably due to the safety railings on the trail. Jack was rushing us on the way because he was pressing for time, but I just could not take our eyes off the scenery along the path.

 A small castle in the Meadow

View of Sky Walk from below

Entrance of Sky Walk

On our way down for lunch, we had little fun with the displays and visited different facilities in Sitou. This was me posing with the bamboo board, haha..

My team was the first group to propose the project and everything went smoothly. Until we approached and consulted Simon and Judy, we realized that there were a lot of shortcomings regarding our project like ambiguity of the outcome, different representation between small plants and big trees, and different conditions between a controlled experiment and the forest. As a result, we changed the project's observation to the effect of diameter against damages done on the tree. 

15 July 2013

We finalized it with plants facing the typhoon's direction being the most damaged in Sitou here. But before we proceed to count the number of plants affected by the wind, we went uphill towards the south and checked out the dams. I learnt that different kinds of trap dams served different purposes and that wooden ones actually had better functions than concrete materials. 

Afternoon came the time where we would be carrying out our project practically. We bashed through the jungle at an area of 50 m X 50 m to count the number of fallen and bent tress. If our hypothesis was right, the area facing the typhoon should have the most number of damaged trees and plants. But the rain was hindering our work 'cos the trails and paths were slippery. In the end, we only managed to finish counting 1 out of 4 areas which we had planned initially.

We came out all drenched and dirty after the forest adventure. It was like 3 years since I bashed through the jungle in the army. Unfortunately, it was just the beginning because we still have 3 more plots to do the next day. Hope it does not rain. Best wishes.