For my second year project, I have chosen to the Fawcett Center restoration project. Unfortunately, I have not started to work on the project yet for two reasons. The first, and largest, reason is that I was unable to meet with either ENR Scholars coordinators until this morning. While I thought I had an idea of what needed to be done, I did not want to begin the project before receiving confirmation of my jobs at the Fawcett Center. As I found out in the meeting this morning, the second reason that I have not begun to work on the project yet is because the area that ENR has been given to clean up also happens to be the site of bird research project through the university. I was informed during my meeting today that when we cut out the large honey suckle bushes, like we did last year, we are actually destroying the habitat for the birds that are being studied. In addition to this, the tree houses set up by ENR near the river, which were meant to attract more birds, ended up altering the researcher’s data because it meant they could no longer monitor the animals in the way that they were able to in their own bird houses. I have been informed that the research group whose work we unintentionally interfered with has been fully supportive of our restoration efforts, and simply wants us to communicate with them before we go out and start cutting things down again. This means that the only difference between last year and this year is that we are not likely to be cutting out large plants, and that we will have to keep our work away from the river banks. Because of this, my primary job when I am actually outside at the Fawcett Center will almost always be to remove invasive species that are small enough to pull out with bare hands, and to tag saplings planted last year to track their progress over the next several months and identify how many survived. Because there may not be enough tasks to do at the Fawcett Center for each member to complete their full 15 hour requirement, and because we got started on the project, which is supposed to be mainly outdoors, so close to winter, some slight changes had to be made. Primarily, the possibility of doing research and compiling comprehensive summaries of findings on topics that relate to the long term sustainability of the project and the efficiency with which it is carried out will now count as part of the required service. Specifically, three areas of research have already been defined as the following:

• Determining robust native species that can be used to replace the growth of the invasive species once they have been removed, and that will contribute to a permanently healthy eco system and not become invasive themselves in the future.
• Monitoring the success of previous efforts, such as sapling planting, to determine what techniques and strategies are most effective and decide how to implement them (for example, figuring out if it is better to ask for a donation of 1000 saplings of all different species, or a donation of 100 healthy, more developed trees with a specific number of each species).
• Finding runoff/herbicide free ways to permanently remove the invasive species, like honey suckle, without damaging the ecosystem or soil. This also applies to the other invasive species, but is particularly applicable to honey suckle due to its ability to come back after being cut to almost any height.

These issues, although they are not as hands on as the Fawcett Center projects were before, will provide a clear guidance for the direction of the restoration and will lead to the long term success of the project.