Science in the Southwest

Monday morning, we drove to the best hike in Tucson: Sabino Canyon. There, we trekked through the beautiful landscape, and after following Bodie’s “always great” intuition, we ended up at a dam where we managed to snap some great pictures. This is where we first got to appreciate the bountiful pleasures of the Sonoran desert. We even got to spot a roadrunner, but the coyote is yet to be seen. Maggie regaled us with facts and stories of her favorite cactus, the saguaro, on our way back. These beautiful, ancient, human-like creatures have so much to teach us about the history of the desert.

 

From Bodie:
In the afternoon, we traveled to Mount Lemmon to explore the different sky islands and the diverse ecosystems each island holds. The first “island” we explored was an oak grassland ecosystem. It was filled with graminoids and non-vascular shrubs, with occasional cacti and yuca plants. We spent this time writing nature-inspired poems and taking geographical surveys.

Next, we trekked up the mountain to Windy Peak, where the view seemed to go on forever. We further climbed up the mountain to around the same elevation as Colorado. This “island/ecosystem” was completely unrecognizable from the Arizona I thought I knew. Everywhere I looked, it was wet, lush, green, and teaming with life.

Now, after the majestic, magical, enchanted forest, we traveled still up further till we reached the top of Mount Lemmon, where we got the opportunity to gaze at the stars through a telescope. The purpose of the Sky Center is to discover and document near-earth asteroids to determine whether or not they are harmless or harmful. That’s cool, but the cherry on top was that we coincidently got to see a rocket ship blast off into space. An experience I will never forget.