My crew members probably are unaware of this, but I am secretly attempting to turn them all into ecologists. Today I saw a glimmer of hope that I may have succeeded. One of my internationals, a self-described city slicker from Durban, South Africa, described her journey of growth in her powers of observation. "At first, the silence deafened me," she lamented. "But after a day or two, I started to find delight in the antics of the ground squirrels, the soaring of the vultures in the thermals." She is falling in love with the high desert ecosystem and is able to describe in great detail the workings of the flora and fauna around her.
I could have died a happy leader.
After I did a little jig of glee, I gave my member a new ecology assignment; one I gleaned from my wonderful professor, Kristen. Ask twenty questions of your environment. It can be as silly as "why is the sky blue", but ask. Delve deeper into the ecosystem processes. And she did! "I am bringing my journal with me tomorrow, so I can record my questions and observations. Oh, it makes life up here so much more fascinating," she giggled. An ecologist in the making. Maybe, just maybe.
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