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Documenting my Learning Adventure

This adventure made possible through the University of Colorado Boulder and the Environmental Data Science Innovation and Inclusion Lab

Contact Information

I have been the Project Coordinator for the Smoky Mountain STEM Collaborative {SMSC} at SCC since 2018. SMSC is part of NASA's SciAct community. Southwestern is the nation's only community college to have a collaborative partnership with NASA which started in 2015. My background is in science education with 16 years experience teaching High School and I have an M.S. in Biology with many years teaching at the college level. In addition, I also worked as the assistant director for Western Carolina University's Upward bound Math & Science program in the 1990s. My passions are inspiring young people to answer their own questions and supporting those who live and work in western North Carolina.

My Projects for the Earth Data Analytics Professional Graduate Certificate

Adding a Map - we learned to:

  • Define geospatial vector data
  • Search for geospatial features
  • Construct a map and embed it into a portfolio website

SMSC is located at Southwestern Community College shown in the map below.

The land where SCC is located is the ancestral home of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians in the mountains of western North Carolina and not far from the Qualla Boundary where the Cherokee People reside. This is my home too and I hope to foster stewardship of this land through data. Creating an interactive map using Open Street Map was our first assignment.

Climate Coding Challenge - we learned to:

  • Analyze temperature data over time
  • Parse date information so that it is represented as a datetime type
  • Use operators to convert to different units
  • Resample time-series data to different frequencies

Our guided learning focused on Denver Colorado (elevation 5280ft) and then we selected a new location and used data from The Global Historical Climatology Network. Below is a comparison of temperature trends in North Carolina and Denver Colorado.

A graph showing a linear regression of mean annual temperatures in Denver, Co

A graph showing a linear regression of mean annual temperatures at Coweeta Hydrologic Lab

Here is my python code showing extraction and analysis of data from Coweeta Hydrologic Lab (elevation 2200-3800ft). I chose Coweeta because it is near where I live and work and has been collecting data for a long time. Note that it's hard to compare the two trendlines because one is in degrees Fahrenheit and the other is in degrees Celsius. However, the slope on both plots show a gradual trend upward. If I weren't trying to finish the rest of the assignments, I might run some additional statistics, but for now I'm thrilled I can share this part of my work especially since hurricane Helene caused the NOAA data center to be offline for a little while.

Mapping Migration - Species Distribution challenge - we learned to:

  • Combine different types of vector data with spatial joins
  • Create a chloropleth plot

This Interactive Map of Veery Migration was our guided learning exercise and then we picked another species to try on our own.

The Veery or Catharus fuscescens, is part of the Turdidae family. It is found in the southeastern US during migration and it may be able to anticipate hurricanes in the Atlantic according to a study by Christopher Heckscher. Unfortunately, Atlantic hurricanes tend to coincide with Veery migration and have a negative impact on their breeding season. This is an example of species that is studied in phenology - the impact of a changing climate on the cyclical pattern of an organisms life history.

Habitat Suitability Project - we learned to:

  • Create a habitat suitability model.
  • The model is based on combining multiple data layers related to soil, topography, and climate.
  • I chose native Rivercane - Arundinaria gigantea - because restoration efforts are relevant locally

My work on this project can be viewed here. It is a work in progress which I plan to complete during the spring semester. Previously I worked with SCC student Stella Walborn using the TourIt platform from Infiniscope and a wealth of resources from regional groups to create a virtual tour of rivercane in WNC. You can find that here.

Sources: