Under the desert sun, wind, snow and rain, International Baccalaureate science students from Flathead High School learned that field research is not without its challenges.

The biology and environmental systems and societies classes were up to the challenge that Arches National Park in Moab, Utah, had to offer during a trip April 13-15.

Fifty-five students collected samples, observed animal behaviors and plant varieties among other studies under the supervision of Flathead teachers Renee Cordes, Lori Ortley and Megan Couser.

At Arches, the students were far from a controlled classroom environment or the textbook lab experiments that had been choreographed by other scientists.

“As younger kids they’re used to lab experiments that happen as they expect, they have a recipe to follow, so this is a real learning process on how to design an experiment, carry it out in challenging conditions and draw conclusions from the results,” Cordes said.

The team of student-scientists changed their labs with the weather.

“We were hoping to do some behavioral studies on lizards the last day, it was far too cold and they didn’t come out, but it was great for our geology lab because the sediments stuck together a little bit better for some of the sampling,” Cordes said.

Last year, Flathead students traveled to South Beach State Park in Oregon to study the rocky intertidal zone. Cordes said students who took the trip both years could observe contrasts between the two ecosystems.

“In the rocky intertidal zone there’s a lot of fecundity, so you would go to a tidal pool and in a square meter of space you could have hundreds of organisms, whereas the desert conditions are so limited plants and animals have to have really special adaptations to survive,” Cordes said.

These out-of-state science trips are optional for students.

“In many ways it’s to show them the importance of field studies to our scientific knowledge and also to show them the challenges of conducting science in the field,” Cordes said. “It doesn’t work perfectly every time. The weather can be a challenge or wild animals don’t show up on cue when you’re expecting to observe them.”  

In Arches, one of the exciting discoveries was an inconspicuous yet important building block of the desert ecosystem — cryptobiotic soil. Closer inspection of the arid landscape reveals this biological soil crust is teeming with small life forms.

“In the desert we have the cryptobiotic soil which is really, really fragile. It’s not pretty or dramatic, but it lays the foundation for all the plant life to survive in the desert,” Cordes said. “It’s a blue-green algal mat that begins to form on the surface of the sand and it’s sticky, so it holds the sand pieces together and it also can hold water so when it rains it swells up and little seeds can fall in and germinate.”

Flathead senior Madison Lopp and junior Sarah Carbajal-Jepsen learned that one misstep could destroy the fragile crust and could take up to a century to return.

“It’s everywhere and it’s not that noticeable to see, it maybe looks like black sand on rocks, like charred,” Carbajal-Jepsen said.

“Or like moss,” Lopp added. “It’s dry-looking, but it’s alive.”

Lopp and Carbajal-Jepsen said some students made T-shirts with the slogan, “Tip-toe around the crypto.”

“When we went to the Delicate Arch we noticed some of it and we could see some areas where there were footprints on it, which was really depressing,” Carbajal-Jepsen said because of the time it would take to reform.

Before they left for the trip they practiced different research techniques and data collection methods such as ethograms. Cordes described an ethogram as a catalog of an animal’s behavior. She said specific actions are recorded and changes observed in different situations.

Lopp and Carbajal-Jepsen practiced making ethograms at school by observing people’s actions before spring break. They also tracked car models in the parking lot to practice calculating biodiversity.

Whether in the desert, ocean, Glacier National Park or their backyards, the International Baccalaureate classes have taught Lopp and Carbajal-Jepsen how to do scientific field research.

“The best part of it is not sitting in the classroom and hearing about it, it’s getting out there and doing the activities, hands-on tests,” Carbajal-Jepsen said.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.