We have officially finished up the projects and work for the summer term. We were able to collect and analyze tree ring data from samples sent to us from Hoonah, Alaska, thanks to the TRAYLS group. We had our last meeting with TRAYLS before the end of July and I don’t think this will be the last time the College of Wooster will see of the group. Our project with them is just the beginning and hopefully, we can continue to collect more data and gain more knowledge about trees and the land’s history in the future. I hope that in the coming years, the pandemic permitting, COW students will be able to travel to Hoonah, talk to locals, and collect samples themselves. The work that we did this summer is the starting point since there is so much to still learn about Alaska.
The next steps are to present our research to the science community. To do this, we have submitted our research to the American Geophysical Union and will have a poster presented in the Fall 2020 meeting in December. We hope to build off of what we learned this summer and be able to further understand the history recorded in the trees of Alaska.
I would like to thank the National Science Foundation for the support and funding our research this summer. I would also like to thank Greg Wiles, Ben Gaglioti, and Arianna Lapke for developing the project and setting the guidelines for what we wanted to accomplish this summer. I would like to thank Julia Pearson for being a great peer and support during this time as well the guest speakers we had present to us during the past 12 weeks. Lastly, I would like to thank all of the members of the TRAYLS group for listening and participating in our discussions, as well as collecting the samples we needed for a successful research project.