In 2016 and 2017, blogger and photographer Erika Zambello launched a road trip to visit as many LTER sites as possible. Follow her travels through the LTER Road Trip StoryMap or peruse the stories below.

See more of Erika’s work at E. Zambello Writing and Photography.

LTER Road Trip: Music and Art Meets Science at Hubbard Brook

WaterViz artistically represents a live-stream of data from Hubbard Brook.

Envisioning Data at Hubbard Brook It’s not every day that you walk into a forest and find musical instruments set up carefully next to a gurgling stream.  Yet melding art and science together is a regular part of the day-to-day operations at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest. Imagine the way that scientific data is normally… Read more »

LTER Road Trip: A Look into the future with DroughtNet

One of the DroughtNet plots seen from above.

Visiting DroughtNet The canopy of the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest glowed in the afternoon light. Sun filtered through the leaves, forming a patterned roof over the forest floor. I walked with Hubbard Brook team leader, Dr. Lindsey Rustad, past several research plots and up a small hill. Peeking at us through the tree trunks was… Read more »

LTER Road Trip: From Ice Storms to Summer Droughts

The Hubbard Brook weather station near headquarters.

Exploring the Northern Temperate Forest at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Research Forest In 1955, the USDA Forest Service set aside over 3,000 acres in the White Mountains of New Hampshire for the express purpose of studying hydrology of northern temperate ecosystems, part of a novel, long term set of research initiatives known as the Hubbard… Read more »

LTER Road Trip: Teaching the Next Generation of Ecologists

Nate Vandiver has now experienced fieldwork first-hand, a memory he can take to his environmental studies courses in college.

Nate Vandiver arrived at the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) offices early on a Friday morning. Pulling on knee-length boots over his long work pants, he helped gather sampling equipment and load it into a van for a day of stream monitoring. Vandiver is a high school senior at the Friends School of Baltimore, and at… Read more »