Log Entry 4/29/2014

Today we are finishing up things for the Herbarium display. We plan to move the entire display to the Sandy Hook vistors' center at the Sandy Hook Lighthouse on Tuesday of next week. We will make changed to our iPad display, finalize our informational poster and update Riker boxes for our bookcase display. I helped Tad add captions to our iPad display.

Log Entry 4/28/2014

This week I plan to create labels for plants that had been previously identified. This includes Seaside Primrose and Yellow loosestrife or Rosa virginiana. Wednesday, we will be attending an expo at Stevens Institute of Technology and will visit the Statue of Liberty. Some of the junior class will be coming with us.

Log Entry 4/25/2014

This week I completed the Riker boxes and labels for Wormwood and Winged Sumac specimens. Yesterday, I worked with Tad on the poster for our Interactive Herbarium display. We came up with some factual information about the Riker boxes and the specimens themselves, to present to the visitors of Sandy Hook. Today, I plan to go through the cabinet and tie up any loose ends with Riker boxes that are unlabeled or unidentified. I also assisted Alex with creating a website referral page for each of the zones represented in the Herbarium. I also went down to the lab to check out the photography equipment.

Final Product

The Sandy Hook Interactive Herbarium is an ongoing, five-year project for the Directed Field Research program. Therefore, all of the work completed this year is not the end of the project, but rather progress toward the end result. The end result for the entire Herbarium is so create a resource of the indigenous plants present on Sandy Hook that is accurate, informative and accessible to the public.
The finished product for the Plant Pressing department of the Herbarium is the actual specimens, displayed in Riker boxes. The Riker boxes need to include the specimens in a manner that displays all aspects of the plant, including stems, leaves, roots, flowers, buds, berries and other special characteristics.
My specific role in the Plant Pressing department is to create the front and back labels for the finished Riker boxes. The labels on the Riker boxes must be informative and accurate, and presented in language that is clear to a common reader. The labels on all the Riker boxes will all follow the same format. We plan to have between twenty and thirty finished specimens by the end of the year.
Next year's group will pick up where we left off. They will collect, identify, press, mount, research and label their own specimens. They will also complete the specimens that we had not. We have made very large strides forward with our specimens this year and we are proud of our progress.

Female American Pokeweed, Beach Plum and Phragmites Riker boxes created this year

Log Entry 4/22/2014

Yesterday, I created labels for Wormwood and Winged Sumac Riker boxes. Today, I plan to laminate the labels and stick them on the back. I plan to attach the four front labels for the plants tomorrow.  These were two of the specimens that were recently identified and pressed in the past few weeks. I also need to fix a mistake on an old Phragmites Riker box. Other than these, there are about ten specimens left unidentified. I can make a dent in the rest of those if I have time left over today.
Our herbarium photography equipment was delivered yesterday, so we plan to set it configured and set up soon. Danny and Alex are working on taking pictures of the finished plants.

Log Entry 4/11/2014

Today, I finished adding dates to my calendar. I also glued the back labels on the Hop Clover, Slender Goldentop, CoastBlite Goosefoot, American Larch. There is a box of empty Riker boxes in the classroom that need to be relocated. We organized the specimens and boxes in the cabinet the other day, so we're working to find a new home for these other boxes.
There were two full plant presses in the room. Today, we went through them and pressed five new plants. They include Strawberry bush, Phragmites Australis, Winged Sumac and two other unidentified specimens. I plan to label and finish the Riker boxes for the ones that are already identified.

Log Entry 4/8/2014

This week, we discovered old Riker boxes in the shed. They are from MAST Herbarium 2011-2012 and they are poorly done, so I have to retype, reprint and reattach all the labels. Today I completed the front of the Riker boxes for American Larch, Coastblite Goose-foot, Hop Clover and Slender Goldentop.  Tomorrow, I'll laminate and adhere the back labels for the four Riker boxes.

Construction

These are three Riker Boxes completed this year, including Female American
Pokeweed, Beach Plum, and Common Reed. 

This marking period, the plant pressing team and I completed 10 the Riker Boxes for ten plant specimens. We followed our plan of procedures for mounting and labeling the plants. Please refer to Construction Pictures for documentation of each stage of the process. 

Botanical field guides used in
identifying specimens

Gluing the back label
onto the Riker box
using spray adhesive

We began this year with plant presses full of specimens and began mounting them in individual Riker boxes. We had about twenty specimens in Riker boxes unidentified. We identified them using our field guides. After they had been identified, I began researching the labels. The University of Texas at Austin has a Herbarium with an online Plant Resources Center. This where I found a lot of the information listed on my labels. The General Characteristics on the back labels concerning specimen color or leaf arrangement/shape is derived from the field guides in our lab.

The labels are typed into a template I created in Microsoft Word. The font of the main front label is Poor Richard. All other text is in Times New Roman font. After the information has been researched and the labels have been typed, they are reviewed. The labels are checked for content, along with grammatical and technical errors. Once they are proofread and verified, they are printed. The back label is laminated and attached to the back of the Riker box with our spray adhesive. We completed this entire process ten times this year in order to create specimens that are accurate, accessible and informative. 

After our visit to the Chrysler Herbarium at Rutgers University, we took greater care in the mounting of the specimens in the Riker boxes. Many of them had already been pressed with special features displayed separately and with roots. We made sure we included as much of the specimens as possible during the mounting process. One change we made, as directed by Ms. Lauren Spitz, was to bend the stems of the plants rather than cutting them. 

When faced with three Riker boxes all containing the same specimen, we were able to come to a more informed conclusion about which specimen to keep. We took features from each of the three boxes and consolidated the plant into one Riker box. The plant is still unidentified. 

Log Entry 4/4/2014

The final progress update presentations are now complete. We will be receiving the MP4 grade breakdowns today or Monday. Then, we will get to work to finish the remainder of the plant pressing work for this year. My plant pressing team and I will discuss the specific information we want to pass on to next year's team and discuss the transition from Riker boxes to paper mounting.

Plants ID but Not Labeled:
Seaside Lavender x2
Seaside Primrose
Wormwood
Tree of Heaven (invasive)
Rosa virginiana/ Rosa multiflora
Yellow Loosestrife
Sea Blite

Log Entry 4/1/2014

This week marks the end of the third marking period. This week and last week are Final Progress Update presentations. We will present the progress we have made in making the Riker boxes. We are having a professional come to help us with any questions we have with the website.