Finishing strong

Field trip

The final day of the Indibano was spent at Silvermine in Table Mountain National Park, one of the Fynbos Node’s active monitoring sites. Dr Jasper Slingsby took the delegates on an informed hike through the reserve to collect data from temperature loggers and trial his newly developed app.

The app allows users to make point observations in the field of major changes in natural vegetation. It also included taking photos and notes of the change within each site.

After the field trip, the delegates had a short tutorial session with Jasper on ‘R’, during which he showed them how to use all the information that had been collected using the app*. He then showed delegates how ‘R’ could be used as a spatial distribution tool by generating maps.

This was followed by a tour of the observatory where the Indibano was hosted, led by SAAO's Christian Hettlage, who kept the delegates entertained with stories of the infamous astronomers that came to South Africa to map the stars and why it was important to do so.

The 10th annual GSN Indibano was a great success and the committee looks forward to further engagement with the GSN, further expanding the network and providing a platform for the next generation of environmental scientists to collaborate.

If you would like to interact with the next generation of environmental scientists, whether it is to employ them, fund them, supervise them or work with them, please feel free to contact us: gsn@saeon.ac.za. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and check our website...

Follow this link to for another article on the 2017 Indibano: http://www.saeon.ac.za/enewsletter/archives/2017/october2017/doc15

*To read more about the app and the data, visit http://www.ecologi.st/.