Updates | Digital Naturalism

Anechoic Haven

I love moss. I really do. I love moss so much that I can’t help but write about it. Moss is indeed one of the Great Things. Moss is like a sedative and its porous structure imparts such a stillness to its surroundings that the sound it absorbs seems to manifest as a physical presence. It’s as…
LED Feelies (for wilderness plants) – Andy, Laura, Jeannette
BOB SOS: Back off bear alert – Jeannette, Hugh

Context: First, a report that a young boy was lacerated by a bear in a forest near us and a suggestion that we build a bear detector. A week before, JY learned how to solder and program an arduino to make an LED blink like one of the firefly species. A day before, she got…
Backpack design: Projection system as part of the function of backpack. -Jeannette

Jeannette Yen- Scientists often rationalize that our advancement of knowledge is equal to the costs of the lives of living organisms. It isn’t. I took disdain at this idea. Instead, with the advances in modern high image resolution in time and space of the digital age, we now can produce large magnified images that are…
Amazing Lifeforms at the NFCCDL (Owl Camp) – Angela

Maybe the mountains imprinted themselves in my dad’s DNA during his childhood in South Korea, and those highland genes are what always draw me to the spectacular sights and sounds of southern Appalachia. While camping in Joyce Kilmer National Forest, I was completely awed by all the life that was around us, and the cool,…
The Night Crawler, he was called!! – Shiva

After a long day at the SCCDL (South Citico Creek Digital Laboratory :P) and a great Turkey Tetrazinni and Raspberry Crumble, we decided to take a stroll to observe some fireflies!! We merely walked around a hundred yards from base camp. We used flashlights to reach the observation site. However, we had to stand or…
Etho-Smock In the Field – Laura, Katelyn, Paul

Challenge One of the most useful, yet also most potentially frustrating, tools for ethologists is the handheld ethogram device. This pocket computer has re-programmable buttons that allow a researcher to capture details of organismal behavior including action type, order, frequency and duration. The challenge in using a handheld ethogram is its un-intuitive interface. The design…
Gimme shelter: Animal Homes in the Wild – Jeannette

This week, I left the hot sticky stoney enclave of urban/campus life at Georgia Tech in Atlanta and entered the cool dappled forest of Tennessee. I brought my own home with me: a hammock tent. Instead of carrying a support system, I used the structures in the forest, namely the trunks of rhododendron bushes. At…
Reflection: It’s More Than Seeing Yourself in the Creek – Katelyn

There are specific tools used in back country living and digital making. When we combined these tool boxes into heavy backpacks to bring on our expedition, we brought the infrastructure to support the most critical tool, our minds. My daily life as a hiking hacker began with coffee at the creek side. A warm drink…
A Day in the Basecamp Life – Laura

One of my favorite things about working in the field are the natural routines you fall into without even realizing. A typical day in basecamp commenced sometime between 7:30 and 8:30am. The ample tree cover and eponymous Smoky Mountain haze kept the sun’s heat and brightness from our site and let us wake slowly. Early…