The soil is rocky under my feet, the soft crunch-crunch often the only thing keeping me from my thoughts. Prof. Dave Des Marais said the first three miles would be more tranquil, but, given that my […]
When I got accepted into MIT on Pi Day three years ago, I knew I entered the world of many opportunities. During my first year, I started to grasp how vast that world actually is: through […]
“He aliʻi ka ʻāina, ke kauā ke kanaka” is a Hawaiian proverb, or ʻōlelo noʻeau which means, “The land is chief, man is the servant.” This statement shows the relationship we have with where we eat, […]
By Viban Gonzales ’20 Today was another day of work in the morning and play in the afternoon. We will be presenting our research to some high school students on Friday, and we spent this morning […]
By Peter Duff ’20 On our sixth day on the island, we had a singular mission; ascend Mauna Kea, and do so in one piece. Mauna Kea is a dormant volcano, stretching ear-popping 13800 feet into […]
By Rayna Higuchi ’20 REX Day 5: Mauna Kea! Today, we drove up Mauna Kea, the second-highest mountain on the island. At the top, there was none of the heat nor humidity we have come to […]
By Viban Gonzales ’20 We’ve been in Hawaii for a few days now and have settled into an evening routine. At the start of the trip, we all signed up for nights to cook dinner for […]
By Rayna Higuchi ’20 Leilani Estates was right by the Fissure 8, the most destructive fissure during this past summer’s lava flows. The surrounding area has been transformed into volcanic glass; it is dangerous, unstable, and […]
By Janice Shiu ’20 As with most days, the group split into two teams, one focused on meteorology and the other on forestry. Given yesterday’s forestry group’s enthusiasm for 7 feet tall ferns and wading through […]
By Rayna Higuchi ’20 We started off today with data analysis, compiling and graphing the data that we have generated with transects so far. Nothing particularly insightful has popped up yet, but we’ll be studying the […]
By Rayna Higuchi ’20 Sierra Rosenzweig ’20, Stephen Duncan ’20, and I kicked off our day with an early morning call into the CEE mini-UROP. We spoke to the freshmen about our experience in TREX and […]
By Janice Shiu ’20 Today, we split into three groups: one to do atmospheric profiles using drones, one to do forest transects in the Nanawale forest reserve, and one to put up a meteorological sensor and […]
By Rayna Higuchi ’20 Today was an exciting disappointment. We were originally supposed to head over to Leilani to see newly formed lava fields, but never got a call back on whether today was okay for […]
By Rayna Higuchi ’20 TREX is an incredible opportunity to learn about the environment, climate, and how human interactions affect each, but we would be remiss if we came to Hawaii for two weeks and never […]
By Rayna Higuchi ’20 The morning dawned bright and not so early, beginning at ten with us splitting into two groups. Half went to our first outing at a small climate and air quality research station, […]