KABT Board Business

Randy and I’ve spent a lot of time togther in the truck over the past few days traveling to the KABT field trip in Nebraska and to Roaring River State Park to get in on some summer trout fishing. With the whine of the tires on the pavement we talked over many topics from family to biology to teaching to fishing–it was inevitable that we’d get around to talking about KABT’s field trips. The purpose of this post is to get the board to start talking, too.

Now, I remind one and all that I’m not a board member but as you know I’m not shy about offering some suggestions for the board to consider. Keep in mind that I’m not volunteering to organize this field trip, I’m only recording parts of the conversation that Randy and I had with the hopes that it begins a board conversation so that plans can be finalized. At last winter’s board meeting, the board voted to prepare for a fall meeting at KU, a field trip to the new Kansas Wetlands Education center at Cheyenne Bottoms in June of ‘09 and a fall trip to the NABT National convention in Denver in ‘09. Randy and I discussed the new museum trip and another field trip idea for future consideration.

Since the Wetlands center is a work in progress, I called Jerry Choate this morning to find out the status of the center–will it be ready to host our group? He indicated that unless they get another massive flood or some other unforeseen event the center should open by Jan. or Feb. of ‘09. While they haven’t hired a director yet he was sure that they would be able to accommodate our group. I also asked if he thought it best for us to wait one more year (2010) before visiting the center but he thought all systems would be go for ‘o9. He indicated that we’d probably be able to do field work and there are classrooms and an auditorium. Without a staff in place yet, it is not possible to really tie down a potential program. In the past we’ve bivouacked at Camp Aldrich which might work again. There is not much in the way of camping facilities anywhere near although Ellinwood used to let folks camp in their city park.

Here’s a KS Wetlands Education Center that describes the project from the Kansas Water Office.

Randy and I also talked about another idea–one that morphs the Bioblast idea more seamlessly in to the KABT spring field trip format. We scheduled a bioblast field trip (a one-day biological inventory) a couple of years ago but several things complicated the final offering and as such not one member attended. Seemingly one of the limiting factors associated with organizing the bioblast is that we had difficulty finding “experts” to oversee taxon specific surveys at the bioblast site. In addition we had a difficult time deciding on a site. As Randy and I cussed and discussed this issue it occurred to us that perhaps we need to recreate what we did at Kanopolis a few years back. John W., Ernie Brown and I set out aquatic samplers in the spring habitats around Kanopolis, we gathered papers relative to the area, Ernie built samplers for all to take home with them and I brought microscopes to view the aquatic organisms. The idea was that the members attending would actively participate in exploring the biota of the region. I thought we were pretty successful with some KABTer’s viewing their first green Kansas hydra, brown diatoms and planaria. Both Randy and I (as well and Sandy and Paula) have attended the late Charlie Drewes’ aquatic invertebrate workshop up at Iowa lakeside Labs and thought we could use that as a model for our field trip but expand it to include other field type of activities–plant i.d., intro. to mosses and liverworts, insects, etc. The key is that we’d set up a mobile lab at a campground shelter with microscopes (compound and stereo), microscope cameras, digital cameras and computers to record the results of our field experience. We figured that if this field trip structure were successful we could replicate it throughout the state in many of the ecosytems we have recently visited but now we’d go back and study them in detail while creating digital resources for KABT members. As a suggestion for the first site for the KABT Field lab, I suggested Toronto Reservoir’s Cross Timbers State Park. The park is noteworthy for it’s Ancient Crosstimber forest–possibly the oldest surviving old-growth stand of trees in the eastern U.S. (several of the trees date to the early 1700’s.

There you have it–some rambling thoughts on possibilities. Now we need some input from others. That input can come from comments posted here or if you’d prefer, perhaps you could encourage Randy to try another conference call.

BW