How I learned GIS does not equal GPS. Sorry Esther.

 Interdisciplinary research has always been one of those things where I think, “ah yes, so important, must prioritize” without ever really knowing what it actually means. This summer has been my first real experience working across disciplines. With Ivy and Esther on geography, Madeline and Marcella on biology, Nell and Liv on political science, and the rest of us on economics, it’s a pretty diverse group. That’s made our research that much more interesting. I’m not just learning about economics, I’m learning about all these other subjects too, and I’m learning far more about them than I ever assumed I would.

That's Esther in the middle
 (and Madeline on the left and me on the right)

One thing I think we’ve all grown far more accustomed to over these past five weeks is communicating complex ideas in your field to someone with little to no experience in that area. For example, Esther is working with GIS a lot, and before last month I’d never even heard of the system. However, she’s taught me a lot about it, and while I couldn’t run through the program as deftly as she can, I feel like I understand the general concept.

 I’ve been quizzing Esther and Ivy a lot on this GIS project of theirs because it just sounds so interesting. Their ultimate goal is to map the areas in the watershed that are most prone to erosion. This model could then be used by local farmers to see where it’s best to plant (or not plant) crops. So far, I’ve seen Esther working a lot on mapping the watershed’s streams on GIS. She looks at satellite images of the watershed, identifies where streams are, and tells the program to factor those in. Esther also defines what type of stream each one is, because apparently there are a whole bunch of types of streams. Who knew?

Esther and Ivy’s GIS project complements Red and my crop diversity project well. While our analysis can help determine what level of variety of crops to plant, Esther and Ivy’s analysis can help determine where to plant those crops. While our project looks to maximize economic benefits, their project seeks to maximize ecological benefits. Together, they help define the planting patterns that aid the community’s overall health—both economic and environmental—the most. This is exponentially more valuable than one without the other and shows why interdisciplinary research is, more often than not, exponentially more valuable than research that neglects to factor in these diverse other viewpoints and disciplines.

(PS yesterday was Esther's birthday, so obviously I have to give her a birthday shout out. Happy birthday buddy!)

This is totally unrelated to my blog post, but I just really love this picture from when we went to the beach at Wakanda Park this past week. Enjoy!