James Donahey |
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Final Report, GIS and Remote Sensing Analyses of Forest Plantations in Costa Rica’s Atlantic Lowland Area The past two months have been a really exciting time in my life. Coming into this REU, I had absolutely no background or experience working with GIS or remote sensing. I was surprised that in the first month in Iowa I was able to learn so much, and get prepared to the point that I could come to La Selva and work through different methods that I had researched. The fact that I’ve just finished my freshman year makes this experience different than most REUs. Instead of applying knowledge learned in school to the project, I really had to learn everything from the scratch. My advisors helped provide me with a solid base of material to prepare me for doing research in the tropics and also helped guide me through developing a method for completing my project. I had much to learn and almost nothing except my experience with computers to go off of. The process of assessing images, and working with GIS and image processing programs won’t just help me with this project, but the knowledge that I’ve gained will improve any forestry projects that I have in the future, and allow me to explore GIS classes down the line with more confidence. Having a taste of what research is really like has also helped me make decisions about my future that would have been completely impossible without this opportunity. In the end, I’ve gained a life experience that will help to guide me for the rest of my college years and beyond. |
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