June 13th 2019 - Relaxing Lab Day.

Today was another relaxing day in the lab. Seven students arrived throughout the morning, and all others worked from home. As the project due date approaches, students are working harder and more diligently than ever.

Aza spent the day sketching the cedar plank road from the McKenzie Creek site and looking at other roads in the area to compare it to. She also printed out photos of the road which she is working on numbering to match the data in her report.

Aza working on the cedar plank road report.

Karoline analyzed the raw data she collected for the waste audit. She found that in total we used 105 meters of flagging tape and 90 meters of string. She also calculated that 45 percent of our non-plastic personal waste was granola bar wrappers, which are very difficult to recycle due to the diversity of materials used to create them. On top of that, 32% of our plastic personal waste was wrapping for dairy products such as string cheese.

Karoline working on the waste audit.

As I said in yesterday's post, Allyah did some more research on the tube that Mitch found in his unit last week. The tube that was manufactured by a branch of The Kendall Company, Bauer and Black, is most likely a burn ointment that came in a Boy Scouts of America first aid kit. The Kendall Company had a branch in Toronto, which is most likely where the one in our collection was shipped from. Allyah can't find any pictures of the actual ointment tube online, all images show only the box.

Shaunti did more research on a fastener that was found at the McKenzie Creek site. She looked quite deeply into it, couldn't find a brand, but found an image that looked like the fastener we have on a leather mitten. After reading more about it, she has made the conclusion that the item was most likely from a leather mitten like the one in the photo she found. Most loggers used gloves that separate their fingers while at work, which also lead her to a conclusion that it was possibly used in the winter. Loggers didn't work in the harsh winters, so if that is the case, it shows that people were living at the McKenzie Creek site after the logging season had ended.

Bob also brought down some books from his office for students to take if they wanted. I got a copy of "Coast Salish Essays" by Wayne Suttles, and "Art of the Northwest Coast" by Aldona Jonaitis. Other students got more books on First Nations in British Columbia, and he even gave out some textbooks that he no longer needed.

Books from Bob.

Next week is our last, and we are all eager to finish our projects. Next Thursday we will be presenting our project findings to the class, and everyone is excited to learn about what others have been working on. On Monday, all students will meet in the lab to discuss their projects with Bob.