Matt Strong

Week of April 7-11, 2008

Forestry 480 Web Journal

The events of this journal took place during the week of April 7-11. Our goal this week was to complete as much of the management report as possible because it is due by Tuesday of next week. Our field work has been completed and presented in our inventory report. The challenge now is to interpret this data and use it to formulate a management plan for the Fields’ property. The majority of this week was spent working as a group in the computer lab or working individually at home.

Taylor and Adrian discuss some of our management options.

Alan does research on some of our wildlife options.

The biggest challenge this week was keeping everyone in the group focused so that we are able to budget our time wisely to meet the upcoming deadlines. This report has made this difficult because it is hard to divide the work up among group members. Unlike past assignments, many sections of the management report require the previous sections to be completed. We often find ourselves waiting on a group member to deliver part of the report, or some information before we can move on. This can be very frustrating when everybody is on different schedules with other classes and work. Another frustrating aspect is the software that we are using to help us come up with an accurate management plan. A lot of time is wasted trying to use programs that we are not familiar with and are not exactly user friendly.

It is difficult for me to be able to put my feelings about the project to date into words. Overall, I think that our group is very frustrated. We have put in a lot of time in the computer lab and don’t have much to show for it in writing. Much of our time has been spent running numbers and researching management options. While I know that this may be the most important part of our report, it makes it seem like we have little to show with the deadline fast approaching. I also feel very frustrated with the grading we have received so far. I gave more time and effort on the management report than any other assignment ever, including my entire academic career, and still received one of the lowest grades for any of my writings. This made me feel very discouraged about the remaining assignments because I feel that I have no control over my grades. I know we have the opportunity to redeem some of the points lost through a rewrite, but it seems too late to take valuable time away from our management plan.

One thing that I wish we had done differently was to rely less on using the growth and yield models to determine our management regimes. We wasted a lot of time not being able to get the program to work properly. We also have little previous experience with the program and it took a lot of time to learn how to use it. If we had to use it again, I wish we would have started trying to use the program sooner, or maybe rely more on our knowledge from previous coursework for ideas. We also had the option of contacting knowledgeable people in or outside of the department for information. We have been in contact with a variety of faculty members and those experienced in the field of forestry throughout the semester.

Chris Reeves is always willing to offer helpful and knowledgeable advice on the project!

Maybe the most frustrating part of the past week is how nice the weather has been. It makes it very difficult to stay inside in front of a computer screen all day. If only the weather would have been this nice last month, we might not be as far behind schedule as we are now.