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Landmark is ASC's groundbreaking project to provide "boots on the ground" support for the American Prairie Reserve management team. Wildlife survey crews consist of skilled outdoors men and women who live and work on Montana's northern Great Plains, collecting data that informs APR's conservation management decisions.   Marin students walk across the Reserve. (Photo by Liz Gottlieb) By Andy Traylor
Teachable moments present themselves in various forms, usually unexpectedly. These are real-life situations that illustrate a subject, concept or process. In my experience, this style of situational instruction captures students in a way that even the most charismatic classroom environment could not. Different locations and landscapes offer degrees of teachable moments – some with dramatic examples, and others more nuanced. On a recent trip to American Prairie Reserve with high school science students from Marin Academy, I found perfectly timed lessons around nearly every bend and hillock. As some of the locals say, “the prairie delivers.”  Since taking her first oar strokes out of the harbor at Monterey, California on June 9, Great Pacific Race rower Elsa Hammond has been pushing hard against the waters of the Pacific, en route to Honolulu, Hawaii.
"Today has been frustrating as I’ve struggled to make any progress west at all," she wrote in a June 24 blog entry. "Rowing as hard as I can I’ve still been travelling a gentle south-east... I need to make that west as well, and I know how far there is still to go." Elsa, 29, is Ph.D candidate from Bristol, U.K. Rowing unsupported, she is now the only solo rower left in the race, and one of eight boats remaining from the original 13. Landmark is ASC's groundbreaking project to provide "boots on the ground" support for the American Prairie Reserve management team. Wildlife survey crews consist of skilled outdoors men and women who live and work on Montana's northern Great Plains, collecting data that informs APR's conservation management decisions.  The American Prairie Reserve may well be the gumbo capital of the world – gumbo mud that is. It pervades eastern Montana and has become part of daily life for our Landmark volunteers. Often made of bentonite clay, this stuff turns slicker than goose poop after a rainstorm. "Some Eastern Montanans use the term gumbo and bentonite interchangeably," according to the Billings Gazette. "But bentonite is a specific slick, sticky form of clay with its own unique chemical makeup... Bentonite comes from volcanic ash that dates back 100 million years or more. The ash settled in a vast inland sea and underwent specific chemical changes." Teri Ness, of the June crew, recently sent in the following poems about life this season on the Reserve. A Prairie Afternoon Crouching in a coulee rain pouring down hail mingling in water trickling under your gators filling up your socks Lightning flashes splitting the sky You should be afraid even crouching you’re still tall But each flash of light and beat of thunder courses through your veins Making you feel alive  Gumbo Man. Photo by Rachel Herring Gumbo days!
Gumbo = rain + clay + bentonite Gumbo = 20 extra pounds on your feet Gumbo = slipping and sliding and fright Gumbo = no driving Gooey Unpredictable Mucky Backseat Oh, God! Landmark is ASC's groundbreaking project to provide "boots on the ground" support for the American Prairie Reserve management team. Wildlife survey crews consist of skilled outdoors men and women who live and work on Montana's northern Great Plains, collecting data that informs APR's conservation management decisions.  Our June crew has been working their tails off and having a great time. They recently sent in words, photos, music and a video that show a window into their lives on Montana's northern Great Plains. From Ela Engert: Prior to arriving on the reserve, I had a much different idea of what the landscape and work entailed. I envisioned myself in a field, hot dry and flat, pulling fenceposts from the ground all day. What I've experienced over the last week has been a drastic improvement over my presumptions.  Sweet clover covers a hillside on a bison count transect. (Photo by Ela Engert) Us volunteers, being amateur scientists, are respected and trusted, participating as equals when collecting data. I find myself hiking nearly every day through rolling green and yellow hills, valleys, bluffs and dry creek beds among the wild, roaming ungulates. Wildflower and cactus in bloom, it is a place of simple beauty.
 Jordan Holsinger is our Scientific Manager and also manages the ASC microplastics project. He recently traveled to Monterey, California, to meet the participants of the Great Pacific Race, the first rowing race across the Pacific Ocean, and train them to collect samples for our microplastics project. Read more about Jordan on our staff page.  Racers prepare for the start of the race, including Jim Bauer, whose boat (No. 17) sports the ASC logo. (Photo by GPR) Two thousand, four hundred miles. Up to three months on the ocean. Alone. For most this sounds like a nightmare, but for the 34 adventurers setting out on the inaugural Great Pacific Race this is literally a dream come true.
If rowing across an ocean is a major athletic and endurance feat, racing it must border on madness. Fewer people have rowed from California to Hawaii than have been in space. Landmark is ASC's groundbreaking project to provide "boots on the ground" support for the American Prairie Reserve management team. Wildlife survey crews consist of skilled outdoors men and women who live and work on Montana's northern Great Plains, collecting data that informs APR's conservation management decisions.  Introducing the first all-female crew...  Alex Guest grew up in Natick, Massachusetts, and recently graduated with a degree in Environmental Science from Skidmore College. Alex has led backpacking and sea kayaking trips in western Washington's Olympic National Park, and studied estuaries in Cape Cod, plant-animal interactions in the Sonoran Desert near Tucson, AZ, habitat fragmentation on the Azuero Peninsula in Panama, and forest conservation in upstate New York. Alex is passionate about conservation, ecosystem interactions and animals. When not collecting data, she can be found hiking, biking, or rock climbing wherever the adventure has led. This summer, that means exploring the vast country of eastern Montana.  Teri Ness is from tiny Clover, South Carolina, where most of her memories are set in the outdoors. She moved west for college, earning a degree in Agricultural Business from Montana State University in Bozeman, and went next to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland for a Master’s in Ecological Economics. Although she’s lived in several cities, Teri has always found a way to spend time outdoors - hiking to temples in South Korea, white water rafting in Iceland, backpacking in Scotland, and rock climbing in Montana. With Landmark, she’s excited to get hands-on data collection experience out in the vast grasslands of northeastern Montana.  Leah Mabee grew up in the heart of the Great Plains, in Yankton, South Dakota. She received a degree in Biology Health Professions from Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa and has since worked as a special education paraprofessional, and with a private public health research and evaluation group. Her love for the outdoors was fostered through family vacations to the Black Hills of South Dakota, as well as canoeing and portaging in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota, and exploring Belize during college. She enjoys hiking, birding, photography, and hunting for fossils and antler sheds. Leah is interested in wildlife conservation, and is looking forward to the adventure of experiencing the prairie in a new way.  Shannon Rebinski was born and raised in the Cumberland Valley region of the Appalachian Mountains in south-central Pennsylvania. A recent graduate from Mansfield University, she has a B.S. in Geography focused on Watershed Management and a minor in Geology. While in college, Shannon was an active officer in various outdoor clubs, spending her free time caving, rock hounding, skiing, hiking and exploring around the mid-Atlantic states. A recent visit to Glacier National Park had her itching for more western adventure, and she called the Landmark project "the perfect way to start off an indefinite escapade."  Rachel Herring grew up in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee, hiking and exploring the surrounding forests, cultivating a love for nature, wildlife and adventure. She recently graduated from Middle Tennessee State University with a degree in Organismal Biology and Ecology and a desire to see the world. After graduation she took a two-month road trip from Nashville, Tennessee to Myrtle Point, Oregon, camping in national forests, national parks and on other public lands. She also volunteered on organic farms, where she learned sustainable living practices and enjoyed working outside all day. Rachel is looking forward to gaining fieldwork experience on the prairie and being a part of such a monumental and exciting project.  Born and raised in Marin County, California, Ela Engert first became interested in the outdoors while rambling around Point Reyes Nattional Seashore and Mount Tam. She has attended the University of Washington in Seattle and Cabrillo Community College, and also completed a NOLS semester mountaineering, hiking and sea kayaking in New Zealand. After Landmark, she plans to continue a bike tour she began last summer, biking the Oregon coast - this july she'll continue from Eureka to Santa Cruz on a touring bike she built. Next you'll find her oysters at the San Francisco Ferry Building Farmers Market. In the fall, she plans to start as a junior at UC Santa Cruz, majoring in Biology with a focus on Ecology and Evolution. |
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