Hello all, this entry of the blog comes to you from Edmond and Phoebe, two students at the TBI Origins Field School. On Monday (the day after we had completed the Great Grevy's Rally) we all flew in two groupsout to TBI Turkwel, Turkana County. Once at the Mpala airstrip, the tiny [...]
The first week of the semester kicked off with the ecology module at Mpala Research Centre (MRC) led by Dr Dino Martins, who is one of the world’s leading experts in East African ecology. The plants and animals found across the MRC are highly diverse and give students the opportunity to understand how topography, [...]
We’ve had an incredible first few weeks at TBI Turkwel! After our time at Mpala, we’ve hit the ground running and have been really busy visiting the incredible sites in the Turkana Basin and enjoying life at TBI! As part of the Environments, Ecosystems and Evolution course taught by Dr. Nicholas Taylor, we created toilet [...]
Personal journal excerpt: It is Tuesday evening; I am relaxing in Mpala research center reminiscing a productive day. I am inspired to write a short account of the ant-acacia relationship we learned earlier today: Picture an ant, One ferocious and alert, She tends and serves, To protect her reserves! Picture another ant, One [...]
Jambo! Welcome to the TBI Origins Field School blog for Fall 2022! My name is Medina Lubisia, the Resident Academic Director for the Fall Field School. I will be accompanying students throughout the field school as they undertake five modules that will be credited for their Fall semester. The students arrived safely in Nairobi and [...]
The excitement that Alex Chege had upon securing the Baldwin Fellowship has its roots in his journey. Connecting the dots from when he was young, it isn't by chance that he is now undertaking the Ecology and Evolution PhD Program at Stony Brook University under the mentorship of Dr. Catherine Markham and Dr. Richard [...]
The TBI Field School students visited the Kerio Delta a few days ago to get a first glimpse of the complex freshwater ecology and dynamics that affect the deltas of Lake Turkana. We were hosted by a group of local fishermen whose boats we used to travel into the mouth of the Kerio Delta. [...]
The Turkana Basin Field School for Fall 2013 has begun! The students made their long journey to Kenya from New York and set off on a short safari into the Great Rift Valley to Lake Elementeita, Lake Nakuru and Lake Naivasha. We started at Lake Elementeita in the Rift Valley where we went for a [...]
In the middle of Lake Turkana, an experiment is taking place without a single person touching a pipette or checking their controls. The open-air lab is called Central Island, and few people have had the opportunity to watch the experiment in action.
Time flies, especially when you’re learning something new. In the case of the ecology module it was more likely to be mosquitoes or bees than flies, but either way we’re all a little shocked that we’re a fifth of the way through the course. Two weeks in the Turkana Basin gone in a flurry of [...]