GPS units, field notes, and the Cape Ann Vernal Pond Team
What I'm working on: One of the benefits of working with small local non-profit conservation groups is access to their data resources. Recently I've been working with the Cape Ann Vernal Pond Team , a loose coalition of Gloucester and Rockport, Massachusetts residents who certify vernal pools in the area. A while ago, I took home their two GPS unit to download the dataset of the vernal pools they've visited and certified over the past decade or so. What a treasure trove! The organization's two principal pool certifiers, Rick Roth and Nick Taormina, who work in the building trades, spend early spring afternoons seeking out the vernal pools located in the state of Massachusetts sdatabase of potential vernal pools. The two guys aren't very savvy with digital tools. Their gps units contained a few hundred waypoints that hadn't been transferred to a database or uploaded into Google Maps. And that's what they were: latitude and longitude data points...