A Day in the Life of a Physical Science Technician

Those of you who have known me for a while, are probably aware that I've had a number of different careers in my life up to this point. High school science teacher, special education teaching assistant, non-profit administrative assistant and program manager, community college counselor and program director. Upon moving to Three Rivers, the parade of jobs was sure to continue and everyone, myself included, was pretty curious to know what I would do next for a living.

I started off working as a biological science technician, running around off trail in the forest helping to collect plant and tree data for the park Fire Ecology program. Little did I know that waiting in the wings was an opportunity to finally use my Bachelor's degree in Meteorology, which I earned thirteen (!) years ago and considered only as a brief step on the path toward my Masters in Education.

I am now officially a Physical Science Technician at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. Sounds like a pretty interesting job, doesn't it? But what does it actually mean? I've gotten that question a fair bit and the short answer is that I now run around the park collecting air, weather and precipitation data for the Air Resources program. The long answer is a bit more or less interesting, depending on how much of a nerd you are.

I mentioned in my very first blog post that Seqouia and Kings Canyon National Parks have some of the worst air quality in the nation, because of their location just east of the San Joaquin Valley, which traps pollution from agricultural practices as well as car exhaust from the Bay Area and the valley. It's a bad combination that leads to significant ozone and particulate matter accumulating in the air. Both are health hazards and obscure visibility by filling the air with a brownish gray haze. I suppose I could now also look at them as a form of job security.

The park has two air monitoring sites - one down near the headquarters at Ash Mountain (elev 1,000 ft) and another up in the Giant Forest (elev 7,500 ft). The Ash Mountain site focuses primarily on monitoring ozone and particulate matter (tiny little specks 2.5-10 microns in diameter that get into your lungs with unpleasant health impacts). Numerous pieces of equipment with different types of filters are running twenty-four hours a day, all year long analyzing the air for ozone, ammonia, particulate matter and other hazardous gases and pollutants. The Giant Forest site looks much more at pollution in the precipitation that falls as rain or snow at elevation. The precipitation samples collected are primarily analyzed for the various components of acid rain, mercury, and now because of the nuclear situation in Japan, radiation.

By far, the best part of my job has been snowshoeing the quarter mile into the Giant Forest site every Tuesday. Sites need to be located in a place where trees don't interfere with the collectors, so in the Giant Forest that meant finding a patch of relatively level ground on the edge of the mountain. I would be quite content doing the most boring job in the world (for a while, anyway), as long as I had this view and got to take this walk through the trees once a week.

View of the valley from the Giant Forest site

Sunlight through the clouds

The day after a snowstorm

Thankfully, this job happens to also involve doing a lot of really interesting things. Collecting precipitation requires a fair amount of vigilance and precision to avoid contaminating the sample. Gathering the data and keeping all the equipment running involves knowing a little about a lot - technology, electronics, basic home repair, common sense, and communication skills, because if anything (including the building that houses all the electronics) breaks it's up to us technicians to fix it with phone support from the various research labs around the country who receive and analyze our data and samples. This week for example, I learned how to replace the diaphragm on an ozone analyzer.

Electronics equipment inside the shelter

Belfort rain gauge (I'll be sad to see this relic go!)

Me cleaning the Mercury Deposition Network precipitation collector

In addition to working for Air Resources, I have also assisted with a database management project for the Environmental Compliance division and the research permit database for the Resource Division. Even the office jobs in the National Park Service are pretty darn interesting. All those years ago at Purdue, I would have never believed that one day I'd be using my degree in this way. It just goes to show that you never know where life is going to take you, but if you're open to the possibilities all kinds of adventures are waiting!