As Arctic ice thins, sea levels rise and glaciers recede, Ken Faulk takes stock of his trees in the Oregon Coast Range. Last summer, he began measuring his stands of Douglas fir and white oak by pounding plastic pipes into the ground to mark the centers of circles nearly 30 feet across.
Ah, summer vacation. Time to kick back, right? Not so much for OSU students who are discovering opportunities to expand their horizons. They’re modeling blood flow, studying wildlife conservation in Africa, surveying Oregon’s old-growth forests and teaching entrepreneurship.
From the state’s ancient forests to its briny oceans, from its prehistoric landscapes to its fertile fields, OSU scientists are studying the complexities of nature and the impacts of human activity.
John Sessions likes to refer to forestry as “a bio-energy puzzle.” Like a lot of 21st-century puzzles, its solutions are digital and mathematical.
Oregon State University biologist Matt Shinderman and his students have been surveying aquatic insects, or macro-invertebrates, to determine how the ecosystem was responding to the equivalent of major surgery.
It took a potato launcher, a canoe and a helium-filled balloon to propel a high-tech scientific enterprise during an international workshop at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest.