Undergraduates Wade into Research

We're sampling as part of a new class that I'm teaching in the Department of Biological Sciences Ecology Research, and Local Waterways. It's been a semester long project where the students work as a team to understand how the Duck pond is changing water quality. So there's a stream that runs under the drill field, and then there's another stream that runs kind of under Derring Hall and Hahn Hall. And those are both parts of Stroubles Creek, which then is what comes out of the Duck pond. So trying to understand some of the water quality concerns both as the stream is buried undertown, and then how the Duck pond can make the water quality better. I was seeing this need a need that, like, I couldn't meet in my own lab research space, but wanted to provide an experience and see if it was something that students were interested in getting as part of coursework. This course basically serves as a way for students to gain research experience that they might not have access to if they're not able to apply to an internship over the summer. They feel ownership over the work that they do. They're collecting data every week. They're analyzing the data right as it comes out from the field. It's just very satisfactory to see them learn and grow. An experience is more fulfilling when you're able to see what you're doing right away, like the product of your work and understand what you're doing and the implications it has. So I think it came at a good time, and I'm so glad that we've been able to do this with my advisor, Dr. Hotchkiss. Yeah. A