Associate Professor Jesse Kroll and Professor Colette Heald organized real-time air quality research efforts on the Big Island of Hawaii following the Kilauea volcanic eruption in May 2018. Professor Kroll and researchers deployed low-cost sensors around […]
By Peter Duff ’20 On our sixth day on the island, we had a singular mission; ascend Mauna Kea, and do so in one piece. Mauna Kea is a dormant volcano, stretching ear-popping 13800 feet into […]
By Rayna Higuchi ’20 REX Day 5: Mauna Kea! Today, we drove up Mauna Kea, the second-highest mountain on the island. At the top, there was none of the heat nor humidity we have come to […]
By Viban Gonzales ’20 We’ve been in Hawaii for a few days now and have settled into an evening routine. At the start of the trip, we all signed up for nights to cook dinner for […]
By Rayna Higuchi ’20 Leilani Estates was right by the Fissure 8, the most destructive fissure during this past summer’s lava flows. The surrounding area has been transformed into volcanic glass; it is dangerous, unstable, and […]
By Janice Shiu ’20 As with most days, the group split into two teams, one focused on meteorology and the other on forestry. Given yesterday’s forestry group’s enthusiasm for 7 feet tall ferns and wading through […]
By Rayna Higuchi ’20 We started off today with data analysis, compiling and graphing the data that we have generated with transects so far. Nothing particularly insightful has popped up yet, but we’ll be studying the […]
By Janice Shiu ’20 Today, we split into three groups: one to do atmospheric profiles using drones, one to do forest transects in the Nanawale forest reserve, and one to put up a meteorological sensor and […]
By Rayna Higuchi ’20 Today was an exciting disappointment. We were originally supposed to head over to Leilani to see newly formed lava fields, but never got a call back on whether today was okay for […]
By Rayna Higuchi ’20 TREX is an incredible opportunity to learn about the environment, climate, and how human interactions affect each, but we would be remiss if we came to Hawaii for two weeks and never […]
By Rayna Higuchi ’20 The morning dawned bright and not so early, beginning at ten with us splitting into two groups. Half went to our first outing at a small climate and air quality research station, […]
By Rayna Higuchi ’20 Today was a pants kind of day. Our group started off adventuring into the woods behind the house to take something called a transect. Professor Dave Des Marais walked 50 feet straight […]
By Rayna Higuchi ’20 Today was the first full day that the TREX group spent in Hawaii. The morning was used for setup, with different groups going to stores, setting up drones and sensors, and buying […]
By Viban Gonzales ’20 I’m Viban Gonzales, a junior in course 1 taking 1.091: Traveling Research Environmental Experience, or TREX. Next week, we are going to the big island of Hawaii to do fieldwork and research […]
By Janice Shiu ’20 Today, the TREX group split into two groups, the atmosphere group and plant group. While the atmosphere group set up meteorological sensors at Kaʻū High & Pāhala Elementary School, the plant group […]
