School and Field Trips Tassie Style

Once again I’m starting to fall behind on writing… oops! I just can’t seem to sit still long enough to finish a post, but I am determined to post one tonight. So here we go…

 Hobart

The last couple weeks have been amazing and full of new and exciting experiences. I love studying in Tasmania! Even though it seems like all I’ve been doing is exploring Tasmania, I do actually go to school here. So no worries mom, only most of my time is spent traveling around Tasmania!

Seriously though I actually have been learning a lot and I love my classes. I’m so thankful I get to go to school at UTAS and learn from some of their awesome/knowledgeable professors. The “study” part of studying abroad has been fantastic!

I am enrolled in Tasmanian Fauna, Protecting Antarctica, and Plant Ecology. They are all very interesting and I am enjoying all of them. However, It’s no shocker that I really like Tasmanian Fauna. What’s not to love about a class all about new and unique Tassie wildlife?!?! My Plant Ecology professor is absolutely awesome though. He is so passionate about plants and it really helps make the class exciting.

School general is definitely different here. At Iowa State I’m use to having multiple exams, quizzes, and/or assignments due each week. Here the assignments and exams are worth more, but they are also more spread out. The only exams I have this semester are during the finals time and I only have about 6 assignments the whole semester! The positive side to this is that I have a lot more free time to explore/travel, however the negative side is that everything you turn is a big chunk of your grade. The grading system is also pretty different. An 80% (or higher) is an excellent grade here. It would be like getting a high A in the USA. A 75% is apparently like receiving an A-/B+. Our Tas Fauna professor made sure to point out this difference to the Americans, so we wouldn’t freak out when we got our first grades back. 
**This is what I’ve noticed for my courses. I am only enrolled in 3 units, so I can’t speak for all the courses offered at the Uni.

Two weekends ago Tanner and I decided to stay in Hobart instead of leaving for the weekend. We actually had our first big assignment due on the Monday, so we wanted to work on it. It was a bird assignment for our Tasmanian Fauna class. We had to identify at least 20 different native bird species and record our observations. It was actually pretty awesome because we got to learn about Tassie birds. Definitely my kind of homework! There were a few other parts to the assignment too and it became kinda time consuming, but that’s beside the point. J I ended up identifying 25 bird species. I feel like the project is still going on though because every time we see a new bird Tanner and I get excited and make sure to identify it. 

Some of our weekend in Hobart was spent exploring the beaches near campus and walking around the Salamanca Markets. The beaches were beautiful and the markets are fantastic! The Salamanca Markets are definitely one of my favorite parts of Hobart.

One of the beaches by campus

Salamanca Markets round 2! I'm sure I'll be back again before I leave Tasmania. 

Sunday was spent finishing our bird assignment and playing in semi cricket/softball games for Christ College. I joined the Christ College girl’s softball team and Tanner joined the boys cricket team. Playing softball was a blast! I haven’t played in a while and forgot how much fun being on a softball team was. I also realized really quickly that I’m pretty rusty… I’m pretty sure I was better in elementary school! I wish I had more hand eye coordination too, but I guess that’s why I was a runner (didn’t need any)! That’s ok though I tried hard and somehow I managed to not strike out, catch some fly balls, and make it back to home a couple times. My teammates were awesome and so much fun to hang out with. I’m so glad I was able to celebrate a Christ College softball win with them! Our last inning was pretty epic and exciting!

Christ College Softball Team

After the softball game, the Christ College boys were up! It was time for their cricket game. I knew absolutely zero about cricket and for the first part of the game I had no idea what was going on. A couple of people were nice enough to explain some of the rules to me. I still don’t know very much about cricket, but at least walked away from the game with some kind of understanding of what was happening. It is a very long game that’s for sure. The boys played a very shortened game and it still took 3.5/4 hours to complete it. Tanner was the only American on the team and for his for attempt at cricket he did an awesome job! I had so much fun watching him and all the other Christ College boys play. Unfortunately they lost, but they still did really well.

The Christ College Cricket Team

My cricket champ! 

Week Adventures

Tuesday our Plant Ecology class went on a field trip to Mount Wellington. Another awesome part about my classes is that a couple of them have had a bunch of field trips. This gives us the opportunity to have a lot of hands on experience, which I love. For this Plant Ecology field trip we identified and counted the plants in 10 random/different 1X1m quadrants, named the trees in our large quadrant, and measured the canopy height. They identify all the plants by scientific names, so I’m starting to be able to identify some of the plants and I all I know is their scientific names. I think it helps make me sound a lot smarter than I actually am. With that being said I don’t know many plants and I appreciate my group’s patience with a North American who doesn’t know Tassie plants. I have also learned that there is a bunch of different species of Eucalyptus tree. I always thought Eucalyptus was like one type of tree. NOPE… there are like 20! Koalas apparently have more food choices than I thought (only on the mainland, there are no wild koalas in Tassie).

After the practical was over our professor took a bus of students to the top of Mount Wellington. This time it wasn’t rainy and it was a perfect day to see the surrounding areas! There are four North Americans in our class (Tanner, Mel, Kate, and I). Two of us are obviously from the US and Mel and Kate are from Canada, so somehow our conversations always turn into teasing each other about living in Canada or the US. It’s all in good humor though… got to love that neighborly love! Mel and Kate are seriously some of the nicest people though and I'm so fortunate that I've gotten the chance to get to know them. 

Tea time during our practical (lab)... So beyond awesome!

Team North America hopped of the bus once we got off the bus and headed straight for the pinnacle of Mount Wellington aka the tourist destination. We didn’t realize how fast we were walking until we turned around and the Aussies (including our teacher) from our class that came to the top were laughing at us. (Our class is super nice, so it was just really funny). Hey, If you are going to us to a top tourist destination its to be expected that we will act like tourists! 

It really was a beautiful view… Team North America thoroughly enjoyed it! Our professor even took a few pictures of all of us at the top.

View from the top of Mount Wellington after our Plant Ecology practical. Going to school is so rough ... ;)

Team North America! (Tanner, Bobbi, Mel, Kate) 

Tas Fauna Field Trip

Last weekend we had our big Tas Fauna weekend field trip. Our class and some other classes went to Fortescue Bay on the Tasman Peninsula. We camped there for two nights and went to different sessions during the weekend. The sessions I went to were Freshwater Survey, Bird Survey, Possum/Water Rat Trapping, and Seine Netting.

Fortescue Bay 

Fortescue Bay from a different angle...

Camping at Forescue 

My favorite activity was the Possum/Water Rat Trapping. We went around and set 30 traps the night before the activity. Then the next more we went around to all the traps and collected some data on what we caught. Then the animals were free to go. We didn’t trap any water rats, but we did get a lot of Brushtail Possum. The possum here are much cuter than the Opossum we have in the US. We made sure we handled each animal carefully, so that both the humans and possums walked away injury free.  I learned a lot from this session and got some AWESOME hands on experience!

I also really enjoyed the seine netting exercise! I got to measure and help catch a variety of fish species. I loved when the net team brought the net in. It was exciting to see what fish we had found! All the fish returned to the water and swam away after we were done measuring/identifying them.

We made sure to set the traps in secure, level ground so the animals would be comfortable. Each trap also had a sack over the top, so the animals would have extra shelter and feel safer. 

We weighed each of the possum, checked their sex, and checked to see if they were microchipped. Then they were released. 

A brushtail possum that we trapped! Adorable!

A cuddle fish skeleton I found on the beach 

It was a great experience and Fortescue Bay was beautiful! I’m so lucky I got the opportunity to participate in this field trip!

We also got to go on an all day Plant Ecology field trip to Snug Tiers this past Tuesday. We were literally walking through the forest for a lot of the day. It was amazing! It was really cool to see how the vegetation types completely changed as we walked. Most of the times they changed drastically very quickly. The end part was all mud and I was up to my knees water sometimes. My boots are waterproof but only if water stays on the outside otherwise they absorb water really well…. So basically the last part of the walk I had puddles in my shoes.  It was another day filled with awesome scenery, wonderful people, tons of memories and lots of laughs! 

One area of our Snug Tier adventures!

We were walking through the forest! So cool!

Lecture in the forest. Also my Plant Ecology professor. 

This week is mid semester break for UTAS, so Tanner and I are off to the mainland tomorrow. We are flying to Cairns (pronounced Cans), so we can see the Great Barrier Reef. Can’t wait to see where our Cairns adventures take us! All I know is I want to find Nemo! J

Miss you all and hope you had/are having fantastic spring breaks.

Love Always,

Bobbi