Week 5 Day 1

We started out week 5 with a seminar concerning GPS and GIS at the Environmental Education, Science and Technology Building here at UNT. Our presenter was Dr. Bruce Hunter. Dr. Hunter gave us the one hour version of an introduction to GIS course that he teaches each semester. One of the things that immediately caught my attention was when he was talking about the first GPS satellites that put into orbit. Apparently the signal the satellites transmitted to help you pinpoint your position was the Oscar Mayer jingle. This secret was closely guarded by the CIA for years. Now the navigation message is a more complex sequence of numeric data that identifies the exact satellite sending the signal and the precise time it sent the message. Based on a phase comparison of the data a specific location on the surface of the earth can be defined. Pretty nifty. Also really handy in a huge spectrum of commercial and industrial applications, as well as research. Dr.  Hunter even showed us some mapping grade GPS equipment that ranged between $7-12,000 apiece.

After the presentation we got to play with some of the most common GIS software in use today. The program we used is called ArcGIS and was developed by ESRI. Dr. Hunter spoke highly of the software and also praised the company because they are strong supporters of schools and education in general, often providing their software for free to schools.

After the seminar Lori headed back to the lab to take sensor readings in the artificial stream we built and Joe and I headed over to Walmart to see if we could track down the Otter Box we needed. Sadly, the stores don't carry them and we can't really wait two weeks for online delivery. We were troubleshooting on and off most of the day when Joe tracked down a solution. We should have them tomorrow! Lori's readings went fine, though we are now down to 17 Gambusia among the four tanks.  Sadly, it appears that at least some of the fish are committing suicide rather than being consumed.

                                                                                                    

	pH	DO	Temperature	# of Fish
Tank 1	8.38	7.0	20.34	1
Tank 2	8.37	7.0	20.32	3
Tank 3	8.36	7.5	20.32	2
Tank 4	8.39	7.5	20.3	11

Interesting observations today- we are left with 17 fish in all 4 tanks. The 4 large fish are scattered through tanks 2, 3, and 4 and have one, two, or a high number of companion fish in same tanks. Large fish seem to have established their own niche in their respective tank and may be protecting it from others. pH has also increased which can be a result of an increase in insoluble concentration. Zac hypothesized that it has to do with low filtration resulting in high concentration of excess matter. Tank 4 remains to have the highest fish count, as mentioned before tank 4 has a larger volume of water through riffle.

After the measurements Lori focused on the lesson plan and created a revised version. She is now working on student activity guides to go with the lesson plan. Here is the first draft. While she worked on that I began the methods section of our research paper and Joe worked on laying out the components for our sensor cluster circuit with Yixin. While Yixin was soldering up the surface mounted resistors and four of the probe circuits Jose and I worked on putting together connector pins.