North and Southwest Regions will be visiting the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Park where Asombro Institute for Science will be hosting a field day for 90 MESA students. As a pre-assignment for the field trip, students should go through the virtual tour of the Desert Discovery Trail. A post-assignment will be posted after the trip. If students complete both assignments and attend the trip they will receive a workshop credit.
What will take place?
Students will be exploring the Chihuahuan Desert on a 2.0 mile nature walk and then will move on to doing two stations that will require them to do a hands-on investigation through the use of the scientific method about topics relating to the desert ecosystem.
The following are the two selected stations for the day:
Habitat Stats
Students use scientific methods to investigate how many different kinds of arthropods are found in different habitats within the desert ecosystem. Students will conduct a complete scientific investigation including making predictions, collecting data, and sharing results.
Rain-out Shelters
Reproducing a long-term study currently being conducted on the Jornada Experimental Range, students collect data on plant density/growth, soil surface temperature, and soil moisture under shelters that block 50% of the rain and in control plots. Global climate change scenarios for our region are also discussed.
***All Field trip logistics will be directly sent to the Advisors going on the trip as it is not the same for both regions.***
More information will be added to this page as the field trip gets closer. Stay tuned.
