SOILS
Professor: Holly Ewing
This class was a brief introduction to soil science and the ecological importance of soil on living and non-living things. The lab portion of the class, which was primarily field work and identifying horizon layers at different sites, complemented the class work, which mostly was spent discussing questions on the reading we had and the primary literature we had read for the day.
GRANT PROPOSAL
Fall 2017
We were asked to write a grant proposal for any aspect of soils that interested us. Since this was an ES class, and I felt a little out of my comfort zone as a biology major, I chose something I was interested in: mycorrhizal fungi. It was really difficult to write a proposal for a topic I was so interested in, because I couldn't understand why someone reading my proposal wouldn't think it was interesting. I appreciated the process behind designing my own study and learning how to account for every single variable that could alter the results of the study in some way. I also think it set me up nicely to write grant proposals in the future. Additionally, since chunks of this assignment were due at different points in the semester, and we had a peer review, I felt confident in my final product and proud of myself for working that hard.