A Counting School - Hardcore Chartered Accountancy : EarthWatch

Don't worry, they won't sting you. They know we're scientists.

Krupo — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:17:00 GMT

My favorite video of the week shows the team here in Costa Rica successfully transferring a bee caught in the field to a specimen jar. It's rather self explanatory so enjoy the clip.

Interestingly enough, you can actually take part in one of these adventures.

As a corporate expeidtion from a Big Four firm we're doing double duty, handling both the science and a special project to assist the local coffee co-operative. You won't perform the bonus business project which my team is doing, but private individuals can help with the science itself. You need to enjoy the outdoors, and be comfortable with something a little more rustic than a regular tropical vacation. Read the project description on their site to learn more about the adventure.

Aside from enjoying the work, you get to essentially live in a community for a week rather than just hover over it like a typical tourist.

Two nights left in the mission. It's been great fun so far - we've even toured two coffee mills. I'll have to describe how all that works once I get a chance. But there is some work left to be done.

And sunshine to enjoy!

This isn't working right, let's try again tomorrow

Krupo — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 02:52:00 GMT

Doing fieldwork in the name of science sometimes often has things in common with audits - tight deadlines are one of them. It's good to have a contingency plan if things don't work out at first. During our visit to plant bee traps we also inspected a set of marked coffee plants to see how their flowering action was progressing. Unfortunatley one of the plants wasn't ready for our visit as the flowers weren't out. Without flowers, there's not much that can be done, so we made a note to come back the next day to perform our observations.

Our follow-up visit was more successful - I only have still photos from that element of the adventure, but "hand pollination" took place. Hot.

If you build in time for "contingencies" - unplanned emergencies, your work, either in pure research, or in AuditLand, will be significantly less stressful!

Let me know if you can hear the audio in these clips. I'm finding that the uploaded videos are awfully quiet - it's hard to hear them on this laptop's speakers even with the volume cranked up to the maximum.

I'll blame the camera we're using for now. It's a new Kodak, but the unit is a loaner and the battery life isn't spectacular either. I'll try another video soon to see if it's easier to hear - maybe it's the rain that's drowning out the speakers - who knows. I think it'll be much better in the next clip.

Suits and ties make my clients suspicious

Krupo — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:39:00 GMT

Dressing up beyond business casual just makes me look ~~silly~~, er, too professional.

Although I work alongside bank auditors in the office - who often run around in suit and tie to match their client's idea of normal business attire - I'm an IT auditor, so it's golf or dress shirt and nice pants if I want to fit in at my client's offices.

The last time I wore a suit to my client's office, they asked me if I was going to a job interview to quit for a competitor. No, it was a formal "power breakfast" I happened to be invited to.

As you can tell by my recent videos, the suits are nowhere to be seen. Helping with scientific research in the coffee plantations of Costa Rica, the only reason to have a formal dress suit in your bags is because you flew directly here from a big fancy formal client meeting.

Our field professor even told us that you have much more 'street cred' if your clothes are neatly stained by the fieldwork you've been conducting. Speaking of fieldwork, I just promised you an update about the results from our first set of traps.

The purpose of the traps was to measure the number and types of bees and related insects visiting coffee plants that are flowering. On Monday we set the traps, and today we came to check on the results of our handiwork.

Above: setting traps, we used a measuring tape to accurately determine the distances involved

We were a bit worried about whether there would be anything to measure. Did we dig deep enough into the soil? Did our PVC pipes get properly anchored into the soil? Would the yellow plates stay in place or fly off? And those were just the concerns about things we could control!

Rainy season is making itself felt. This means that while the mornings are dry and sunny, the afternoons are invariably rainy. And we got a proper deluge last night. Would the rain wash out all the specimens are traps collected?

To our great relief - after some careful analysis - we were able to conclude that the plates didn't overflow and our samples were valid. This saved us from having to empty out the plates and "reset" the experiment for another 24 hour collection period.

Above: pouring the specimens into a Whirl-Pak sampling bag

There was a small element of drama, however, when we ran into the fields to collect from our twelve traps, and accidentally passed straight by the first three!

To get a proper sample, we had three traps for four different distances: 10m, 20m, 30m, and 50m from our starting point at the edge of the fields. Fuelled by the excellent local Costa Rican coffee we flew right past the 10m traps. This wasn't a big problem - we just had to remember that "20 is the new 10" when we brought the specimens back to the lab for analysis.

Tomorrow we'll go to check on the newest set of traps - now set both in the forest and in fields by my colleagues - and to check out honey bees. I've been informed that I'll be wearing beekeeper's gloves - which means the Pentax will be running on full automatic focus to avoid flailing about with claw-like gloved hands when taking photos.

Setting the trap

Krupo — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 01:36:00 GMT

In my previous post I showed how we took a soil sample from the field and inserted a PVC pipe to start setting our bee trap. I paused that recording as I had to retrieve the most component of our trap: the yellow bowl filled with a bit of soapy water, which is designed to attract and capture bees. This clip shows how it's done.

I didn't record a video of the retrieval operation we performed today, as we split up and the other team had the video camera, but I managed to take some stills which you'll soon see, along with an explanation of the challenges we faced.

Until then, let's just say it's a good thing we didn't put too much soapy water in our traps.

"Now you look like real field biologists"

Krupo — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 06:58:00 GMT

Our professor in the field, Dr. Banks, had kind words for us as we started our week of research in the Tarrazú region of Costa Rica.

Armed with a couple of augers, PVC pipes, yellow "party" bowls, bottles of soapy water, insect catching nets, measuring tape, jars, more bags and, of course, several clipboards, we set off into the fields.

We were lucky to enjoy a 'soft' introduction to fieldwork: the farm where work started is a relatively easy site for inspecting bee activity and the flowering of coffee plants because it's isolated from patches of rainforest. At sites adjacent to rainforests we'll be conducting more tests - here, on the other hand, we only had to dig for half as many soil samples. This didn't mean the work was a cakewalk - catching bees is not easy for accounting firm staff, and the banana trees' leaves made patches of ground wickedly slippery - tomorrow's sure to be more intense.

We completed the adventure without any incidents, even catching some bees. There's a decent video of the "transfer from net to jar" process I'll have to upload as soon as I have a chance.

La Tortuga arrives

Krupo — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 05:25:00 GMT

Before you say, "isn't it ironic that you're driving around in an SUV while trying to save the planet," keep in mind that a Honda Civic will not make it up the mountain roads that lead to coffee plantation.

La Tortuga, our white tortoise, is a very British Land Rover and the best way to move around an eight person team to our research sites.

In this clip, the team arrives at home base, well only half the team arrives - we had additional people from the EarthWatch institute join us on today's journey which meant that we had to be posh and use two vehicles.

After the rain, riding on the roof wasn't a wise idea.

Nothing exceedingly exciting here - this is a glorified "test" post to make sure our account is working. An archive of better photos is already developing and the team and the "real" worok is only about to begin tomorrow.

Live from Costa Rica

Krupo — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 05:16:00 GMT

My team in Costa Rica is writing an internal group blog about the scientific expedition we've joined - and that blog is a great way to share our experiences with my firm's audience.

No one on the "outside" can see it, though so I'll follow along with my own posts and hopefully manage to squeak out some photos and videos over the limited internet connection at our humble site in the process. Posts will be short since my wifi connection may cut out at any time, and the I don't want to spend all night on my colleague's computer either.

Highlights today included consumption of lots of high quality Costa Rican coffee after a hike through the Cloud Forest. And then came the rain, which conveniently enough started falling only after the end of our hike.

Hopefully the new Youtube account I've created will process our welcome video quickly.

It's shaping up to be a ridiculosly fun week.