Presenting...

today's adventure: my first presentation!

I got to spend my evening with people from Brigantine, NJ (woo hoo practically my people!) and Murrysville, PA who are currently staying and working in New Orleans with Project Homecoming. One of the houses they are currently working on, under the good supervision of one of my housemates, Anna Leigh, is the home of Professor Longhair. I think that is spectacular. (One of the goals of Project Homecoming is to rebuild communities, not just houses, and what better way to help the community but fix up one of their hometown heroes' homes? Also I think his daughter was still living there before it got beat up by Katrina.)


Now that you have some great background music...

I was worried about the presentation because 1. I am excited about and interested in just about everything, so it's hard to decide what's actually important and interesting for other people who live outside of my brain; 2. It is difficult to convey the dire environmental crisis happening in southern Louisiana's wetlands by walking through a relatively healthy marsh just outside of New Orleans. We talked about how these landforms are made, why they matter, and why they are falling apart. Those were the main points I wanted to cover, and I talked about them all, so I feel ok about it.

I received some good feedback though, so it went all right. I was even able to answer almost all of the questions! Except for this one: how big is the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico (the area in which nothing can grow or live because of all of the pollution that accumulates at the bottom of the enormous Mississippi River watershed)? Which I am now reading up on... it's awful. It varies throughout the year, but averages between the size of the state of Connecticut and the state of New Jersey.

...

That's a terrible note to end on. But a few more people understand what's going on down here, and at the end of our walk at Bayou Sauvage, there were a few alligators hanging out in the canal, so everyone came away pretty excited. I was talking to people about birds by then, but I'll try to get pictures next time.

Tomorrow's adventure: traveling south with NRCS to plant trees! Along bayous! In the water?
 
This was the picture they sent me when I asked about appropriate attire for such field work, not realizing we would not be working on solid ground...