Nature High Summer Camp

This camp is so awesome!  I was a counselor last year, so I'll put up some pics and stories below, but first off, here's the promotional video they made for the camp which shows a lot of awesome footage from last summer!  If you or someone you know is a High School student in Utah, you owe it to yourself to check this opportunity out!





Wondering what to do this summer in Utah? Summer camp, teens, teenagers, resume builder During summer 2013, it was my great pleasure to work as a camp counselor for Nature High Summer Camp in Ephraim Canyon, Utah!  Here's my awesome group of students:

Under Construction, sorry! I'm a busy college student, please forgive me. :)

Capitol Reef Field Trip

I just spent a totally awesome weekend at UVU's Capitol Reef Field Station with my Botany class (Flora of Utah).  We had a group of 20 students, and our two teachers - the Botany Lab Manager Ally Searle and Dr. Renee Van Buren, who is also the station manager.  She is the one who spearheaded the creation of this awesome field station, after 10 years of working and fighting for it.  Check out the website.

Dr. Renee Van Buren, Capitol Reef Field Station Manager (my Botany professor), enjoying our jam session

Ally Searle, Botany Lab Manager, in a box canyon on our orientation hike

Jane Dell, Field Station Site Manager, teaching us about Packrat Midddens

Botany
It was a long weekend of botanizing on our way to Capitol Reef National Park, and in the park, and driving from there down to Bryce Canyon (we didn't go in there though, just drove through Escalante and did a couple things in Red Canyon nearby).  So much fun.  Got a bit of a tan, had lots of time to sit in the dirt with a 3" thick Plant key, took a few quizzes, and had a ton of fun laughing and joking with my classmates.  We had a really fun group.  I still need to get my plant families down- I've been working on that with practice and flash cards all weekend.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you find a post about the plant families in the near future so I can practice them more.  We saw some neat cacti and other things that I didn't take pictures of because I collected them, outside of Capitol Reef itself, of course.  (In case you're unaware, in national parks you aren't allowed to collect anything.)  I rode in the van with Dr. Van Buren so I learned a lot.  I was happy to find that she loves Geology too so I got to learn some geology on this trip from both her and Jane.  Speaking of which...

Geology of Capitol Reef National Park
Capitol Reef was named that because it has some white domes of Navajo Sandstone which reminded people of the U.S. capitol.  And it was termed a reef because, like a coral reef to sailors, this huge body of rock was a barrier very hard to get around for early travelers on horseback and in wagons.

Capitol Reef is a giant anticline.  The crust was folded up like a dome or speed bump and then partly eroded away.  As you travel down in elevation along the reef you actually go into newer layers because of how the crust is curved from this deformation.

There are 5 main formations in Capitol Reef.  From top (newest) to bottom (oldest):
Navajo Formation (sandstone)
Kayenta Formation (mudstone I think)
Wyngate Formation (sandstone)
Chinle Formation (mudstone)
Moenkope Formation

The Chinle is pretty soft and more prone to erosion than the harder Wyngate sandstone above it, so the Chinle, which has beautiful colors of gray, purple, and green, erodes quickly, causing large chunks of Wyngate to fall off the cliffs.  That's why the base of the cliffs are completely littered with boulders.  It's pretty fun.

Wyngate Formation of Capitol Reef National Park with boulder field at the base

The first morning I went out and explored that area.  It's a wash because there are a lot of flash floods that run through the area during the summer rains (monsoon).  I had a blast exploring down there and finding neat trees, rocks and plants.  My favorite was this boulder that looks just like an anapsid skull (turtles have this kind of skull).

Click for source and more info about skull types

Prehistory
I have finally collected my first fossils!  We went to an area that was covered in bivalve fossils that have been left in a big pile after the surrounding rock has eroded away.  You could just sift through and gather what you wanted, just like beach combing. 

Bivalve fossils near CRNP

Bivalve fossil - Jurassic time period

I was so excited that this area was outside of the national park itself because that meant I could actually take some of these home- yippee!

Biology
I got bones!!!  My awesome friend (and fellow Bio Ed student) Garrett pointed out some bones on the ground and there was almost an entire deer skeleton (I think it's a deer, at least).  I'll see if I can figure out what animal it belongs to for sure.  This was a great trip for adding some cool stuff to my collection of geek out artifacts... lots of bones, tons of plants, and some fossils.  I wish I could always have a botanist, biologist, and geologist to go with me on all my vacations so I could learn the entire time and have them point out the best places to collect things and such.

As far as live animal life, we saw a lot of birds, lizards, some bats on our stargazing night, a couple of marmots and one pronghorn.  So that wasn't a huge highlight of the trip, but there was plenty of other cool stuff to keep me happy.

Astronomy
As I mentioned we did some stargazing on the first night.  They pulled out the ginormous telescope (holy cow, "ginormous" is in the dictionary now!  It didn't give me a spell check error).  We got to take a look at the craters of the moon and see Saturn!  Wahoo!  So that's my second time in a month getting to see that planet, rings and all.  (We saw it at a ranger program while on our trip in Bryce Canyon, which I still need to blog about...I'm behind.)  Totally cool.

Jane and the interns pulled out their pointers and showed us some stars, planets, and constellations.

They pointed out the curved section of the mane of the lion Leo.

As well as the Gemini twins -  Castor and Pollux.

Source

The best part for me was talking about this best-known constellation: the big dipper.  Ursa Major is the real name of it and this constellation is of a bear.  I never realized before that the big dipper that is so easily recognized is only the tail and part of the body of the bear.  So it was cool to see it in context of the rest of it.  I always used to think of constellations as being very small and clustered.  But they really can take up quite a bit of space in the sky.

I definitely want to take an Astronomy class!  Next summer will hopefully be my chance to take a few fun things that aren't required before I have to leave UVU.  On the wish list: Ornithology, Trees & Shrubs, and Astronomy.  Thanks Renee, Ally, Jane, and UVU for a wonderful field trip!

Group picture taken on our Cohab Canyon Trail hike in Capitol Reef National Park
(L toR) Top back: Renee, (the one name I don't remember, sorry), Chris
Top front: Quinn, Zack, Garrett, Leslie
Bottom back: Mike, Katie, Madi, John, Julie (me), Lewis, Heather, Megan, Emily, Jerom
Bottom front: Richard, Debbie, Emma

Canyons of the Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains along the east of Utah Valley

Whew, long title.
I have been trying to figure out all the names of the canyons in Utah Valley.  Growing up, of course I knew about all the "big" ones because we went to them all the time - AF, Provo, Hobble Creek and Spanish Fork canyons.  But this past year I've been discovering the others and it's really been awesome.  I haven't visited or hiked in all of them yet, but I plan to.  I had to look up the names of some of these with help of Google.  Maybe someone else is looking for it too, so here it is, and I hope to some day put this on to a picture or drawing for all the visual people like me.  If you see that I have any of them wrong or missed any, please let me know!

Canyons of Utah Valley, north to south:
AF canyon
Grove Creek Canyon - north of the G
Battle Creek Canyon- off 200 S. PG, south of the G
Dry Canyon - off 200 S. Lindon/ 2000 N. Orem
Provo Canyon
Little Rock Canyon
Rock Canyon - east of Provo temple, North of the Y
Slate Canyon- About 2000 S. Provo, South of the Y
Hobble Creek Canyon - Springville
Maple Canyon - Mapleton
Spanish Fork Canyon

Rock Canyon Revisited

I went to a church today that was really close to one of my favorite new places I discovered/ was introduced to in 2011- Rock Canyon (just east of the Provo LDS temple).  I decided to head up there and collect some tintic quartzite because I love that rock.  It's what makes Rock Canyon so interesting and beautiful.  There's a little cave up there too that is severely chemically weathered (by water) - the rock is so soft you can just flake it off by rubbing your fingers across it.  Here are some pictures I took in 2011.

Tintic quartzite

Cool tintic quartzite rocks jutting out of the mountainside

Vertical joints (faults) in the rock (this rock bed used to be horizontal layered sediments and has now been tilted slightly more than 90 degrees).  Limestone I believe.

Tintic quartzite in cave, and I think the black is an organic growth (lichens maybe?)

Crumbling rock in weathered cave

Rock canyon with a dusting of snow and the Provo LDS temple in the foreground

Teaching in Utah

So, I'm getting a degree in Biology Education as well as an endorsement in Environmental Science (which allows me to teach all the Earth Science stuff as well).  I figured I could make a comfortable living as a teacher since it's just myself and two kids to provide for.  Think again I guess.  I just looked it up and the salary for where I want to teach is only $32,000 a year for the first year.  Ick.  I figured I need to make at least $36,000 to be comfortable.  Not even super comfortable like owning a home and stuff, I'd still have to rent.  But I could pay all my bills and have some money for incidental expenses and savings, so it would be sufficient for my needs without any government help.  I guess "self-sufficient" is a more accurate term instead of "comfortable".

So I guess I will have to get a summer job to make up the difference or work something part-time during the school year until I have worked enough years to get a liveable wage.  This is what I get for being in Utah - the state with the lowest teacher salaries in the country.  If it weren't for my family and the amazing mountains and canyons, I'd be so out of here...


He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.
Proverbs 10:4
diligent: characterized by steady, earnest, and energetic effort (m-w.com)

Vampire at the Living Planet Aquarium

Today we got to go to the only aquarium in Utah.  It's one of my favorite places to be.  I interned there this past summer and still volunteer there from time to time.
The kids all love the penguins of course- Gentoo Penguins from the Galapagos Islands in South America.  They are the fastest swimming species of penguins in the world, at about 22 miles per hour.  (To give some perspective, the fastest Olympic swimmer can go about 7 mph.)  The group they have at the aquarium are very playful and fun to watch.

However, I tend to like to point out the lesser-known animals to people.  One of which has become one of my favorite fish.

It is in the same tank as the Green Anaconda- largest snake in the world.  So of course people don't take much notice of what else is in there besides the snake, and sometimes the White Spotted River Stingray.  But there is a little silver fish that likes to hang out in the front corner of the tank where he's easy to spot.  When you look at him he doesn't look all that unusual besides the eerie big eyes.  But if you look close you can kind of see some nice sharp teeth in its jaws in that picture above.  Cute isn't it?  But it gets better.  This fish is called the "Sabertooth Payara", or "Vampire Tetra".  Hmm....

So, on the 26th try... I finally got a picture of this guy opening his mouth so you can see its wicked teeth that give it it's names. :)  Sweet, huh?