Sand Dunes Featured at Talk

Armando Montano
The Paw Print
A Lunchtime Talk featuring the national park service was held last Wednesday in porter hall concerning the great sand dunes located here in the San Luis valley.
Andrew Valdez’s “The plight to protect groundwater at Great Sand Dunes” was a largely ecological discussion that incorporated much in means of scientific measures and technological advances.
With the issues of ecological preservation in the recent years and the rear of global warming drastically changing the environment that is well known to locals and internationally renowned for being greatly unique to the valley, the maintenance of the Sand Dunes in conjunction with surrounding water rights and usage has been a concern for the past few decades.
In this particular lunch time lecture, members of the audience who attended were able to see the concerns of the dunes and water vanishing and massive change to the ecology of the national park to be a realistic, but also being actively combated.
Andrew Valdez of the National Park Service presented to the audience much information pertaining to the advances the park has made in monitoring the water fluctuations and the changes the sand dunes have exhibited in the last few decades.
Those who are concerned with the impact on the sand dunes of water removal in the surrounding areas were assured that the park will remain in good condition for many more years to come. Valdez made a stirring and interesting presentation that got to heart towards those who want to see the San Luis Valley develop and flourish, and found a good middle ground to the local environment and ecosystem.
The new means used in conjunction with other national park services here in state and elsewhere nationwide to gather data and stockpile a shared database also took the audience’s attention to the constructive use that integration of science and technology in the wild is allowing a harmony among human interaction in the environment, conservation and preservation.
The entire presentation was well organized and presented to a large audience, the room was entirely filled and grasped immediately at the information being presented.
Valdez clearly knew well the content of the lecture and made it easy to follow and understand and encouraged all of us to gain a deeper opinion of the ecological impact of water rights in the national parks and government lands and how they can impact you directly.
The Lunchtime talk series has been a strong success to many students, faculty and surrounding community members and are easily presented to the audience so even those who are coming with absolutely no previous knowledge of the lecture topic can leave knowing enough to formulate their own appreciation to the lecture’s significance.
This year, The Lunchtime Talks in Science and Mathematics has many interesting subjects that show the significance of science and mathematics in everyday life.
The next talk is to be held on February 15th, at noon in porter 130, entitled “History of strength training since 1900” by HPPE professor Dr. Mike Waller.
All students, faculty and community members are encouraged to attend. For more information on the Lunchtime Talks, please contact Dr. Matt Nehring at msnehrin@adams.edu or 587-7504.