Everyone who has done field work would probably agree that conceptualizing a methodology in the lab and then finally coming out onto the field to apply it will only play out smoothly in a perfect world. Since this world is so unpredictably imperfect, the field will always throw out conditions to make you question your intuitiveness, handiness, the things you’ve learned in a theoretical setting, and maybe even your tolerance for things not going your way.
If there were a recipe for ‘the first day of field work on a rocky shore,’ it would include tiny cuts and bruises, close calls to slipping on bare rock faces, isopods and amphipods moving too quickly to identify, and algae trapped under fingernails; aside from the specific things that could only happen on a windy day in southwestern Sweden – goosebumps while evaluating the ‘nth quadrat and problems differentiating between tiny Littorine snails (it’s all in the angles).
The hard thinking comes at the end of the day, when you finally have to look at your first set of data, figure out what went wrong and how to fix it, and, if you’re the humbly aspiring marine biologist that you are, admit to yourself that you’ve forgotten half of everything you’ve learned in statistics. After the struggle to understand your in-field handwriting to encode the data, you can finally discuss how to improve on almost all aspects of your methodology (Yes, we had to rethink almost everything).
The challenges don’t stop there! A second day in the field could be just as unique. Merely making your way to the next location could mean getting completely drenched in saltwater while going against the wind on a little boat. Not to mention the increase in pressure to get things right in the field the second time around. By the end of the second day, you’ve seen enough rocky shore creatures to go to sleep by counting barnacles instead of sheep and by dreaming of macroalgae, moving with the waves in sweet slow motion.
If there were a recipe for ‘the first day of field work on a rocky shore,’ it would include tiny cuts and bruises, close calls to slipping on bare rock faces, isopods and amphipods moving too quickly to identify, and algae trapped under fingernails; aside from the specific things that could only happen on a windy day in southwestern Sweden – goosebumps while evaluating the ‘nth quadrat and problems differentiating between tiny Littorine snails (it’s all in the angles).
The hard thinking comes at the end of the day, when you finally have to look at your first set of data, figure out what went wrong and how to fix it, and, if you’re the humbly aspiring marine biologist that you are, admit to yourself that you’ve forgotten half of everything you’ve learned in statistics. After the struggle to understand your in-field handwriting to encode the data, you can finally discuss how to improve on almost all aspects of your methodology (Yes, we had to rethink almost everything).
The challenges don’t stop there! A second day in the field could be just as unique. Merely making your way to the next location could mean getting completely drenched in saltwater while going against the wind on a little boat. Not to mention the increase in pressure to get things right in the field the second time around. By the end of the second day, you’ve seen enough rocky shore creatures to go to sleep by counting barnacles instead of sheep and by dreaming of macroalgae, moving with the waves in sweet slow motion.
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