REU Field Trips, 2012

This REU program
was funded through
NSF PHY-1004848.

UC Davis REU Field Trips: 2012

Lake Berryessa

Summer 2012 involved an unusually large amount of hiking. Our first trip was an optional hike near Lake Berryessa, complete with science questions: why is the grass greener over there? why is this spot cool? how can you measure the distance to the sun? That evening, Professor Cebra hosted a barbecue for all the REU students.

Big Basin Redwoods and Lick Observatory

We followed this with the most ambitious one-day trip we've ever tried. We left Davis around 8:30 in the morning to drive to Big Basin Redwoods State Park. There we had lunch and hiked a 5-mile loop that included a small waterfall, many large redwoods, and one tree that despite having been completely hollowed out by fire decades ago still has one living branch.

From there we drove to Lick Observatory for a picnic dinner and a private tour. Although telescopes (domes, below left) are the main focus at Lick, our guide also pointed out a metal disk marked "MONUMENT" (below right)that looked something like a small manhole cover. It covers the spot where the laser sat during the first measurements that bounced laser light off the reflectors left on the moon by early Apollo missions. The experiment improved the accuracy of the Earth-Moon distance (as well as proving that yes, people made it to the moon). The tour finished with an after-dark viewing through a three-foot-diameter refracting telescope, and we arrived in Davis after 2 AM.

McClellan Nuclear Research Center

We toured the McClellan Nuclear Research site in Sacramento, including the bays for imaging large objects and the neutron analysis section. The highlight at McClellan is always looking into the core of the nuclear reactor, with its blue glow from Cherenkov radiation. The speed of light is slower in a medium than in vacuum, and electrons that exceed the speed of light in the medium emit radiation.

Lassen Volcanic National Park

Our camping trip was again to Lassen National Park, with a stop at nearby Subway Cave. Subway Cave is a tube, several hundred meters long, created when flowing lava solidified where it was exposed to air, while remaining molten and moving within. We camped at Butte Lake and climbed the Cinder Cone volcano. On Sunday we went through the main part of the park, stopping at beautiful Manzanita lake (below left, with Mount Lassen in the background), the large volcanic rocks of the Devastated Area, and the Bumpass Hell hydrothermal area (below right, a weird-looking sulfurous stream that flows out of Bumpass Hell).

Lake Tahoe

Professor Chiang and her husband kindly hosted the entire REU group at their home in Squaw Valley, just north of Lake Tahoe. The trip began with a visit to the Tahoe Environmental Research Center, followed by time at the beach. We then had great viewing of the Perseids meteor shower. On Sunday people split into two main groups, one biking along the path at the edge of the lake and the other hiking to a nearby small lake and swimming in it. A few students opted to enjoy the scenery from the house itself.

San Francisco

On top of the program-arranged trips, about half of the students made their own trip to Berkeley and San Francisco one weekend. The monkeys below sit outside a decorative arts store near Chinatown.