GDEP Track 2 Launches!!!

GDEP has been funded by the National Science Foundation for a second run of three full summers, after its highly successful first run of three summers (2002-2004)!

We have just completed our third summer in GDEP Track 2, with a highly successful research symposium on August 13^th. This summer featured a wider array of activities than previous summers. As in previous summers, there were field and lab based research projects, one on the hydrogeology of Palos Verdes Peninsula and the other on comparing and constrasting ecological boundaries between native California sage scrub and exotic annual grasslands mainly in the westernmost Santa Monica Mountains. In addition, there was a two week field trip for one group of GDEP students, which took them up the central coast of California and then inland across the San Joaquin Valley and the Sierra Nevada, returning along Owens Valley and the Mojave Desert. Another different activity this summer was an Earth Science Standards teaching workshop for nearly 100 high school teachers.

We have also been running community field trips to some of the GDEP field sites twice a year, just so the friends and family of GDEP interns can learn cool things from the experience, too!

Ms. Gabriela Valenzuela Wins a Scholarship!

The GDEP team has just learned that our administrative coördinator, Ms. Gabriela Valenzuela has just received a $500 scholarship for her groundwater research from the Southern California Branch of the Groundwater Resources Association of California. Congratulations!!