Watershed Watch - 2009
While exploring one of the wildest places in the East—and wading through its muddy, mosquito-infested ooze—40 undergraduate students discovered something last summer you may not hear often: There’s a bright future for inquisitive minds (and sweaty brows, dirty boots, and outdoor adventurers) in science. “Students who take part in Watershed Watch are amazed at how much they can learn by visiting these places and then really taking a close look at what they find,” says Steve Hale, a UNH research associate with The Joan and James Leitzel Center for Mathematics, Science, and Engineering Education.
Turns out, the Great Dismal Swamp in North Carolina becomes a great enlightened science lab when members of the UNH Watershed Watch Program come to study. “I am continually amazed at how students, when put in charge of their own learning, rally to the task,” says Hale, who helped guide the student researchers.
The Summer Institute Watershed Watch program is an intensive two-week field session held in alternating years on the Merrimack River in New Hampshire and the Pasquotank River in North Carolina. The 2009 class was in North Carolina, where students used scientific methods to study watersheds and their intricate relationships to people and societies. Students follow up their summer work with a research-based course during the normal academic year.
The program is a partnership of UNH and Elizabeth City State University (ECSU)—a historically black university in North Carolina. Also participating are the Great Bay Community College and North Carolina’s College of the Albemarle, both two-year colleges. Members of the 2009 class designed experiments to explore an array of wetlands-related issues, including hurricanes, wildlife, water quality, and climate change.
Funded by the National Science Foundation, the project aims to interest undeclared students in majoring in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines in college. And it’s working, with many past participants electing STEM-related majors as undergraduates. “Watershed Watch is one of our big success stories,” says Karen Graham, Leitzel Center director and co-principle investigator on the project. “And in many ways it symbolizes the UNH-ECSU partnership model since it builds on the research and educational strengths of both institutions.”
For more on Watershed Watch click here