Tag: #shareyourscience

Alumni Success: Wren’s Story

Written by Wren Bell, class of 2022

Hi, my name is Wren Bell and I graduated from Mason in December 2022 with a major in environmental science and policy concentrating on ecological science with minors in conservation studies and computer science.

I first got interested in stream ecology when we watched a video showing a stream scientist standing in waders, chest deep in the stream, in Dr. Smith’s Biomes and Human Dimension’s class. She said, “This is my lab, in the water” and I said to myself “That’s what I want my future to be” After that, I took Dr. Fowler’s Aquatic Invertebrate Ecology class, and that confirmed for me that I wanted work with these amazing organisms. Our class went out to Cape Charles where we collected red algae, and it had a diversity of invertebrates like isopods, crabs, and worms living on it. It was like each piece had its own tiny ecosystem. It was such a great experience to see how much life is actually out there and even the tiniest creatures need to be protected. They are such foundational parts of our ecosystems that most people don’t ever think about. In my microbiology class with Dr. Salerno, we swabbed random areas in our building and put it on streak plates. It was so cool to use techniques that can highlight so much life that is invisible to our eyes.

I am now working for Prince William County’s Watershed Management Division as a field technician. We go out and monitor restored and unrestored streams, looking at macroinvertebrates, structure, stream chemistry, and sometimes we do wetland delineations. Using professional equipment, meeting with county stakeholders, and getting paid to play with bugs, is just so awesome!

Wren teaches students how to ID macroinvertebrates

When I was a kid, we didn’t learn much outdoors or have programs like PEREC’s Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience, with whom I’m also working with part-time. I want kids to know how amazing the earth is, and that they too can get paid to do stuff in the streams and not all jobs require sitting in an office all day.

Also, I’ve always advocated for people with disabilities, especially people like me who rely on mobility devices to get around. I want them to see me doing this job. I am very visible with my disability because I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to work in these fields. Because I’m an ambulatory wheelchair user, which means I can still walk, I do not always need my wheelchair. This gives me the privilege and access to many opportunities that would ordinarily be closed off to a full-time wheelchair user. I want others to know that they too can be a scientist or ecologist, regardless of physical ability. I am working to make these jobs more accessible for everyone and spread awareness that disabled people are still extremely valuable to the environmental movement. Workplaces not only need to make their positions accessible to those with disabilities but be openly welcoming to them as well. I’ve talked with many disabled people who feel like environmental science is completely inaccessible to them, despite their passion and interest. But there are so many ways to get involved that can be tailored to your specific needs and limitations.

You don’t have to be able to run a long distance or trek through a mountainside to be an environmentalist. The only requirement is passion.

Microplastics and Pollutants in The Great Lakes

Written by: Mark Derco

The great lakes are the largest coalition of freshwater lakes in the world and paramount to the success of the cities that border the lakes. However, the success of the lakes depends on the cities around them. For years industry has been contributing to the pollution of the great lakes and with this research we are looking to fill a gap in knowledge that will help us track the movement of these pollutants throughout the great lakes and in other regions of the United States.

Katie Russels Wins Student Excellence Award

Chau Pham: OSCAR 2018 Summer Experience

Written by: Chau Pham

I am participating in the 2018 summer OSCAR program as a member of the chemistry team at the Potomac Science Center. My research goal is to quantify the concentrations of endocrine disruptive compounds (EDCs) and pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in Gunston Cove. By measuring the present of these chemicals in the watershed, we can further examine the effect of bioaccumulation and the water quality after treatment.

The chemistry team worked with water, zooplankton, filters, sediments, clams, submerged aquatic vegetation, and three species of fish, which were collected by the ecology team. Water samples were processed differently from other samples. Firstly, the collected water was filtered through 2 layers of glass microfiber filter GF/F and GF/D. Then, we used 2 different methods to perform solid phase extraction: HLB, to obtain EDCs, and AXCX to collect PPCPs. The QuEChERS method was used for other samples preparation. Finally, all of the samples were transferred in auto sampler vial in order to load into HPLC/MS/MS, which is a powerful and sensitive instrument to identify and

The evaporation step that we used in extraction of micropollutants from water samples

quantify chemical concentrations in nanograms. The chemistry team was divided into 2 groups to analyze data for EDCs and PPCPs. I along with 2 other members have been working with LabSolution software to analyze the data for EDCs drug schedule. We found different species of sunscreen agents, NSAID, as well as herbicides in samples from Gunston Cove watershed suggesting that wastewater effluent and storm water run-off contribute are sources for pollution and bioaccumulation.

Through summer OSCAR program, not only did I gain valuable skills, I also learned tremendous knowledge about current research at George Mason University. My mentors and the PEREC team have worked hard to arrange brown bag seminar every Friday where I can learn about interesting and exciting research, jobs, and projects on environmental sciences.

Brian Kim: Researching Fish on the Potomac

Students record the length of live caught fish before returning them to the river.

My name is Brian Kim and I am a member of the OSCAR fish team at the Potomac Science Center (PSC). Over the course of this summer, I have been going out to Gunston Cove and Hunting Creek located within the Potomac River to collect fish species. My research focuses on assessing the diet items of the fish species and determining if there is a significant difference between the two locations as well as any differences in submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) and non-aquatic submerged vegetation (NSAV) areas within each location. The most enjoyable part of this experience has been the process of the actual fish collection. There have been two separate trips for each location where we would use a series of seine nets, fyke nets and trawls to catch fish from as little as 10 mm to as large as 530 mm. The trawls were the most thrilling method because we usually caught the largest specimens during each trial. As each trawl was hauled onto the boat, there was a rush of excitement as to see which specimens we caught and how many. Once we had recorded all required data on each fish, the samples were taken back to the Potomac Science Center to begin the process of answering the question “What exactly has each fish species been eating?”

Five juvenile fish that were the last meal of a yellow perch.

The majority of my time at the PSC has been spent dissecting the stomachs from the fish samples and opening them up to see what was inside. Each stomach from the fish species differed in some way both internally and externally. The most exciting stomach contents that I have found so far came from a Yellow Perch that had eaten five juvenile fish within the last day it was caught. I was able to identify the five juveniles as three White Perch and two Spottail Shiners. There have been various different prey items in the stomachs such as amphipods, chironomids, gastropods and aquatic insects that must now be analyzed. Using the stomach contents from each fish species, I will be able to determine which prey items are the most impactful as well as how location, habitat and fish species differ in diets. My time at the PSC and with OSCAR has been the most exciting summer during my undergraduate years and I hope that in the future I will be able to return and continue to work on related projects.

Micropollutants in the Potomac

A New Way to Study Fish?

Written by: Jessie Melton

River herring, Alosa pseudoharengus and Alosa aestivalis, are an anadromous fish species that migrate from marine waters through estuaries to freshwater nurseries in order to spawn and lay eggs. River herring have historically been a valuable commercial species in fisheries, but the stocks collapsed throughout their native region along the Atlantic Coast since the 1990s. The Potomac Environmental Research and Educational Center (PEREC) has conducted an ongoing study of Gunston Cove for the past three and a half decades, and has incorporated the monitoring of river herring population to aid in determining whether or not the moratorium is beneficial to the decline in river herring abundance.

Why are there Drugs in the Potomac River?

Are Potomac Fish on Drugs?

OSCAR students Lisa McAnulty and Tabitha King talks about their summer 2017 research. Led by principal investigators Amy Fowler and Kim de Mutsert, the Summer Team Project looked at the effects of micropollutants on the Potomac River watershed. Projects were funded by the Students as Scholars at Mason as well as the Patriot Green Fund, and the videos were produced by graduate student, Chelsea Gray, thanks to the Virginia Sea Grant.