Home, Sweet (Temporary) Home in Richmond, New South Wales

Dear Family and Friends,

We are finally settled in to our house and done traveling (for now). Our house is a small house that has a living room/dining room, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a kitchen. My room is already messy but that is because it is small and my room at home is usually messy as some of you may know. We have a huge lawn in front of our house which is awesome so I can play football and soccer on it. In back we also have a lawn but not as big. Our house is on the University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury Campus, but we have hardly seen any students. It’s only 100 ft to the green houses were my dad is working.

The school and town is about half a mile away. It’s a small town about the size of Felton (or maybe more like Scotts Valley), but it is much flatter. It is spring here now (because we are in the southern hemisphere and the seasons are reversed), so it’s green outside and very warm.

Last weekend we went to the beach which was fun because we went in the water and I watched a lot of planes land since the beach is near the airport.

On Wednesday I went to my first day of school which was really fun. I met a lot of people which was good and we played soccer and I got a goooooooooooooooooooooool! (I spelled that in Spanish on purpose). We were in class and a giant army plane was landing and was only 50 feet above the 2 story school, because there is an army base nearby.  Lots of kids wanted to talk to me because I am from the U.S. I have to wear a uniform (not too bad - grey shorts, blue polo shirt, and a blue hat for outside activities). The school pretty much the same as mine in the US but they have 1 hour 15 minutes of recess which is awesome! But they have announcements after every recess. At my school here they like to play foursquare and minecraft just like at home.

Travis and friends in Friday P.E. school uniforms 

Richmond Public School 

The front of our house

The living room

Magpie near our house - lots of birds around here that call out often - especially the kookaburras

A few musings from Karen: We’re now settled on the University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury Campus which is 50 km west of Sydney and is in what feels like a relatively rural area.  Michael is working with his collaborator David Tissue, on various global change experiments (more from Michael on that below).  In the meantime, I am commuting 2 meters across the hall from our bedroom to my computer, where I am working on various writing projects largely free from the many interruptions of when I was department chair for the past three years.

We are staying at a visiting faculty house right on the campus, which is quite nice (and not quite as small as Travis suggests).  When I arrived on a Sunday night, I was a bit concerned that our house was right in the middle of campus with two dorms I can see from my office window.  But, in the past week I could count on my hand how many people have actually passed the window each day, leading me to wonder where all the students on the campus are.  David has told us that the two dorms in view are currently unoccupied and being renovated, partially explaining our unexpected and much appreciated privacy.  But, even on a bike ride to the other side of campus I still saw very few students.  David tells me it’s because this campus (University of Western Sydney has about five campuses) was actually going to be closed down, but they decided to invest heavily in their Environmental Institute here so it’s more of a research institute than a campus; indeed, the only other subjects that seem to be taught here are nursing and criminal science.  It means that I feel like our house is a mile down a country road, rather than on a college campus.  We do have some nice neighbors in the house next door, who are coincidentally from Spain (where we’re headed in the winter/spring), but otherwise we don’t see many people.

There’s a shuttle bus between campus and town (about 1 km away) with a whopping four stops – the campus library, campus residential, the mall in town, and the train station (Travis’ school is about half way between the two) so even I can’t get lost.  We are at the end of a train line to Sydney so we do plan to make some weekend trips there, as well as hiking in the Blue Mountains to our east.  But, otherwise, I’ll be typing away and enjoying the lack of distractions.

The field in front our house - note that it is always this empty.

And, now, Michael’s turn:  We’re now down to my science portion of our sabbatical.  It is common for scientists to go visit a host lab when they are on sabbatical. My host here is Prof. David Tissue, whom Karen mentioned above.  David and I have been friends and colleagues since the mid 1980s.  We were graduate students in the same lab at UCLA, and for the past 15 years or so have collaborated on research on desert plants (in Big Bend National Park, TX, and in Mammoth Lakes, CA among other places) and vegetation responses to rainfall patterns and climate change.  Seven years ago, David moved from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX to the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at the University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury Campus.  He is one of the lead scientists on a massive research project on how plant physiology and forest ecosystems are affected by various aspects of climate change.  They have a variety of amazing climate experiments in place, which are highlighted in the photos below.  To a climate/plant/electronics/weather nerd like me, this place is Scientific Disneyland.  While here, I will be part of a multi-university team that will be investigating how a large number of “genotypes” (individuals of one species, but varying in their genetic composition) of Eucalyptus respond to elevated conditions of carbon dioxide (remember that Eucalyptus - all 700+ species - are native to AU). I will also conduct a smaller-scale project on how future climate conditions affect tree survival of heat waves (which are expected to get more common in the future.) OK, so that’s the science plan, now on with the photo show....

There are many state-of-the-art greenhouses here in which Michael will be working.  They are designed to grow plants under fully controlled conditions of watering, temperature, relative humidity, and carbon dioxide concentrations.

There are called "Whole Tree Chambers" (not rocket-trees!)  They contain entire trees, and the internal air has precise temperature, humidity and CO2 concentration controls. The roots are isolated from the upper parts of the tree so that photosynthesis can be measured separately from respiration from the soil.

Not the best photo, but I wanted to give a sense of what it looks like inside.  Ladders allow access to all parts of the tree.

These are called Rain Out Shelters, though they look somewhat post-apocalyptic. There are no others like these in the world. When it rains on a sensor, motors automatically lift transparent plastic curtains up along the sides and down the sloped tops, preventing rain from getting to the plants inside.  Currently, plants are in pots but the next experiment will have entire trees planted inside these shelters.

This is another rain out shelter experiment.  These are obviously smaller and do not move in comparison to the big fancy ones in the previous two photos.  Water runs off the top and a series of pumps add 50% more or 50% less water to the soil under the shelters, compared to the actual amount of natural rainfall. All kinds of measurements are being made in these research plots, including which species like the altered rainfall, how much they grow, what insects visit, what is happening in the soil, etc.

Distant view of "EucFACE" where carbon dioxide is being continuously added to the Eucalyptus forest to better understand forest ecology under future conditions.  There are several large research plots, each about 25 m across.  The construction cranes allow researchers to be lowered in buckets for measurements anywhere into each of the research plots, to any height above the ground (the forest is about 20 m tall.)  I have not yet taken this Disneyland ride.

Best wishes from Travis, Karen & Michael!