Biosphere 2 Days One and Two!

A lot of you have asked me to share my experience here at the Biosphere 2. (I can't believe it is already here!) I am happy do do so, but be prepared, this will be a LONG post. I have already taken a ton of pictures and am so excited to share what has happened these past two days! And day two isn't even over! I will tell you all about what is going to happen last, and I will post pictures of it tomorrow!

The anticipation was high as I woke up at 4:00 am Friday morning to get into the already packed car by 5:30 am. We said a final farewell to our home and started toward our new home for the next two weeks, the Biosphere 2! I know I have said this before, but for those who don't know, I have been in love with the Biosphere 2 since I was twelve. I always wanted to be the marine biologist who took care of the ocean. I now get to live on the campus for two weeks!
After a two and a half hour drive, we came up to this beauty:

I made Matt stop to take a picture out of the window. I was beside myself with excitement! We were here!! The next hour or two were spent checking in, unloading and finding our casitas. We are split up, Matt is in a casita with all men and I am in a casita with one other woman. The positive is that I have my own bathroom!

It is kind of dark, but the above picture is the door to my room. (I know, I am a nerd!)

And this is my room! I have a full and a twin bed in here, but there is nobody else in my room with me. I chose the bigger bed, but I have to shake out the covers at night to check for scorpions and other buggies. I had three moths try to spend the night with me on my pillow. No thank you!

After we dropped off all of our stuff, we headed to the cafe for breakfast. I sit down and someone proceeds to tell me that we have to make our bed super tight in the morning because last year a participant was stung getting into bed by a scorpion. If you know about my cockroach experience in Roatan, you know I do NOT like anything creepy crawly. *shudder* I check the floor, the chairs, the bed, my shoes, my clothes, the toilet, EVERYTHING!

We were then asked to join the team in the Sahara room. We met everyone and had an overview of what the institute would look like. We had to fill out all of the paperwork (necessity, but not the most fun thing in the world) and we heard from one of our leaders, Greg. Greg is a high school physics teacher and he was AMAZING! Talk about animation and engaging personality! Everyone else got a turn to speak as well and things looked great!

After a short break we headed back into the Sahara room to find this at our tables:

Morning inquiry activity! We got to work with a partner to perform an activity with water, soda and alka-seltzer where we put different foods, a popcorn kernel, grape and raisin in with different substances and watched what happened!

All photos are taken with my phone at this point, and it does not take the best pictures, but it had to do in that instance.

After that experiment, we headed to the cafe for lunch, which was bbq beef and shredded pork with salad and cookies. We had to write on an index card what inquiry meant to us and turn it in at the end, which Greg turned into a Wordle. I had no idea what those were, but I love it and will use it in the future! Check it out!

When we walked back into the classroom after lunch, we found this amazing beauty at our table:

I know, I know, I am a nerd and a half. I love school supplies, especially extremely fancy science journals. This thing was decked out! It has a table of contents, grid paper for all of my notes and even a page on how to do a science notebook properly. Did you know that it is a legal document? you need to sign and date the bottom of each page so that it can not be stolen, and DON'T rip it out! I found it pretty funny.

From there we got to do an amazingly cool experiment with artificial snow. It is the same kind of thing that they put in diapers, but they put the substance in the indoor ski slopes and freeze it so that people can ski on it. I had a ton of fun playing with it.

 This is the artificial snow before. That is about a tablespoon of powder. 

Artificial snow after having water added to it. This used to be that tablespoon, now it is about a cup and a half. I had too much fun playing with it! I couldn't believe how fast it absorbed and fluffed up! 

That night we got to meet the man who heads up the grant that brought us here. He played a ton with liquid nitrogen. I don't have a picture with me, (Matt has it) but I got to dip flowers in the nitrogen and shatter it with my hands. So cool! I did, however get some fun pictures. 

ICE CREAM!!! (Needed sugar, they forgot it! Oops!)

This was after an amazing dinner IN the Biosphere! When we were done with that, we got the surprise of being given a night tour of the Biosphere. (There were soooooo many cockroaches! ICK! One even climbed up Matt's leg! Hahaha!) It was quite incredible and looks entirely different in the dark. We got to go up in the library! That was my favorite part of my tour! 

 There was a glass square at the top that looked straight down to the ground through the spiral staircase. This pic is from the top looking down. 

 Me standing on the glass! Daring, huh? 

 I like the picture with my shoes in it. It looks like I am defying gravity! 

 Matt took my picture from down the stairs looking up  through the glass. 

We also laid down on the glass to make it look like we were falling through. So fun! 

I took some beautiful shots outside when we left after we left the South Lung. I have some shots of that as well. 

 Matt in the South Lung entrance. 

 Biosphere lit at night! 

My absolute favorite picture of the night! 

This morning, after locking myself out of my room in my pajamas, we went on a scavenger hunt for some surprises. I woke up and put on my purple plaid shirt and my purple heather shirt and went to the outdoor classroom. Once there they had us grab colors, and my color was purple! It was meant to be! We started out by finding hats, then we found water bottles. After the water bottles we were sent to a very dark room where she turned on the lights and we were gifted iPod Touches! 32 Gigs too! If that was not enough, we found lanyards, cables to hook our touches to the SMARTBoard and TV, a neck cooler thing, t-shirts, posters, a curriculum book for a Private Eye Loupe (Magnifying glass thing)... AND... an iPad 2 with the new, super cool magnetic covers! (Mine is blue) We are spending all day tomorrow learning how to use them and create really cool things! (I will post pics of these things tomorrow!) 

After receiving these AMAZING gifts, we got to go into the Biosphere and collect samples. We got to wander off the beaten path, take leaves, water and soil and bring it back to the main room to explore and observe and write in our journals. 

 The Ocean! 

 Me getting ready to take the rainforest research path. 

 I am planning on using this pic as a writing prompt. 

 Rainforest.

 Another research entrance into the rainforest. 

 This is a video of the rainforest area. Hopefully it works! 

 The waterfall area of the rainforest. 

 A leaf skeleton that you can't really see but is super cool! 

 Underneath the pond in the rainforest. 

 Taking a soil sample at the ocean! 

 The control center of it all... Parts of it have air blowing so hard it will blow you sideways. 

 The tourist path through the desert. 

 Taking water samples! 

 More water samples

 A beautiful flower in the Mangrove area. 

 Vines in the Mangrove area. 

 Matt and I with the ocean in the background just off to the right. 

 Video of the ocean area and the Savannah area. 

 All of our samples. RC (a guy in my group) was so organized! 

 Journal entries. So fun! You can see how cool the pages are! 

The skeletal leaf so you can actually see it. 

We then had a yummy lunch and met again in another room to talk about the states of matter and what salt does to the temperature of ice. Once we talked about this we got to create ice cream in a bag! 

What does salt do to the temperature of ice? 

Ice Cream in a bag supplies! 

 Mixing ingredients! 

 Shake, shake, shake! Shake that ice cream! 

 Shake it some more! 

Eating the fruits of our labor. It, too, needed more sugar. So sad! But so fun and actually kinda good. 

Our evening ended with a delicious dinner and a talk by one of the original Biospherians! Not only did she live in it, she helped design it and went on the expeditions to gather the plants. It was amazing! She was wonderful to listen to and it was fascinating to hear about what it was like for her in there. 

Overall, today was a spectacular day. I loved every minute and I can't wait for the next 13 days!! 

Outdoor Exploration

Today I decided to go exploring with my camera. The plants are almost all in full bloom and the weather is a "chilly" 91 degrees with blue skies and not a cloud in sight.

What more can you ask for? How gorgeous is that!? When I was in college I worked in a plant nursery. (I have to say plant nursery because some think children when I say nursery.) We had so many beautiful plants and flowers come through the doors and I learned a lot. Unfortunately, you can't grow the amount of stunning flowers here as you can in Oregon. Our yard is severely lacking at the moment, so I went out to enjoy the ones our neighborhood has on display.

There were busy bees buzzing in and out of this beauty, but I couldn't get the picture focused and snapped in time before the little guys flew away, so I settled for the best picture of this flower that I could get. I love the varying shades of purple with the sage green behind it. It pops! Another purple I came upon was:

Lantana. Lantana is one of my favorites. For some reason in Oregon I did not like it. I think it got spindly and not very full there, but here it is pretty much used in every yard and display and it acts similar to a ground cover in some cases. It comes in shades of purple, red, orange and yellow. I love the red best.

I love the different kind of desert plants that grow here like weeds. One of those is a type of agave, which we call "Shin Daggers" because they are really poky and they stab your shins if you are not careful. I captured a few of those that I really liked.

I like this one because it surprised me with a gift I wasn't expecting of the spider web. Spiders love, love, love shin daggers. Black widows are a main resident of ours. I am often too afraid to walk down the walkway to and from our front door because it is like a black widow expressway. No thank you!

I loved the curve of this blade. This shin dagger was so small when we first had it put in, but now, three years later, it is ginormous! It is starting to take over our walkway and we have had to severely cut it back. Sadly, I may have to think about taking them out because they are just too big. I may put in this gorgeous desert version of a bird of paradise. I will post the best picture of that I have later.

This picture was fun because it is through the hole in a yard ornament that my dad made. The yard ornament is a butterfly that has been roughly cut out of a piece of sheet metal. Through the hole gives a unique perspective of the ordinary.

I was having a hard time with all the wind today getting a decent picture of the true beauty of this plant. This is the type of bird of paradise I was telling you about earlier. The reds, oranges and yellows are stunning and pair that with a gorgeous blue sky and you have a stunning display!

This particular plant was giving me the hardest time. I wanted a clear picture of just the open flowers, but the wind was blowing so much that it would not stay still for anything and snapping a good close up was impossible. They are everywhere and are very lovely!

And, finally, my favorite of the day.

I love this particular cactus. It is growing wild all over the desert and for some reason I find it so odd because it looks like someone just took a handful of blackberry stalks and placed them in the ground. During its blooming season all of the sticks are covered in a beautiful chartreuse green foliage. It is wonderful!

These are just a few of the gorgeous flowers around me. This does not count the trees or anything else. I will have to wait until another day to share those, but for now, enjoy the beauty that the AZ desert has to offer in my small neighborhood.

Dream Come True!

A few months ago I mentioned that I applied to do a summer institute at the Biosphere 2 in Oracle AZ. I was nervous, pacing, checking my email every ten seconds for weeks. Obsessed? Just a smidge. We were told that we were to hear from them the week after spring break, and when no news showed up, I feared the worst. I assumed that I had not gotten in. It took me a couple of days to accept the fact that I was not going to be living on the Biosphere 2 campus for two dream filled weeks. When I was least expecting it a friend of mine who also applied informed me that she had received an email stating that, unfortunately, had not gotten accepted to the institute. I flew back to my computer to check if I had received anything, my hope renewed and my fear sparked once again.

Nothing...

Bummer! But, my hope grew stronger since I had not received a rejection letter. Within the next fifteen or twenty minutes my husband came running up to me with his phone, telling me that he received a letter saying that he was accepted and that I should check my email to see if I had been accepted as well. My nerves were in a frenzy! Little did he know that I would be the deepest shade of green he ever saw if he got in and I didn't. I mean, how would it be fair if I didn't get to live my dream and he, who didn't really know what the Biosphere was before I introduced it to him, did! I slid into my desk chair and pulled out my phone...

ACCEPTANCE!!

My ear-piercing scream ricocheted through the classroom and, I am sure, could be heard down the hall! To say that I was ecstatic would be an extreme understatement. The hopes and dreams of the twelve year old girl inside of me were coming to fruition!

As time wore on, emails were received, laptops purchased, meal preferences stated (I only said no pork, are you proud of me!?), ning's joined and plans were made. Now, in just under two weeks I will be driving down to Oracle, AZ and living on the Biosphere 2 complex for TWO WEEKS! I am in heaven. This is proof that God does listen to your frantic prayers and hopeful dreams. I am extremely thankful for this opportunity and will update as much as I can while it is happening.

For now you can watch this video to kind of get an idea of what it is we will be seeing/doing while I am there!

As for before the Biosphere 2 institute, I will be running my second 1/2 marathon in San Diego this upcoming Sunday! I am not in it for time this time, due to some pretty spotty training, but I will definitely be in it to do the best I can and finish! Not only do I get to run a spectacular run, I get to spend a fun filled weekend with my amazing hubby and our friends! I can't wait! I will update on that as well. I need to get better at being up to date! Thanks for hanging in there and not giving up on me! Summer is here and there will be much more to come!