Environmental Analysis Lab

Students in the Field

The Center for Environmental Studies’ Environmental Analysis Lab–under the guidance of Prof. David Dethier and Technical Assistant Jay Racela–continued the process of gathering and analyzing meteorological, hydrological and biogeochemical data from Hopkins Memorial Forest.

During the spring of 2014, the lab hosted 24 ES102 students (13 first-years, 9 sophomores, 2 juniors) with the TA help of Julie Jung ’15 and Michaela Levine ‘16, helping them to learn how to analyze the local environment in-depth using aspects of Geoscience, Biology and Chemistry. We also hosted the following in 2013: CH255 students for sample analyses by Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS) and Ion Chromatography (IC); Austin Paul ’16 and Amanda Schott ‘15 for their training of PCB extraction using the Accelerated Solvent Extractor; Molly Pickel ’15 and Andrew Nemeth ’15 as the summer CES ENVI-lab Research Assistants continuing the hydro-geochemical analyses of HMF. The Science Center purchased an Elemental Analyzer (EA) for the ENVI lab that will enable low-cost, high-integrity chemical analyses of soils, plants, foods and waters. During the 2014 winter-study, Eric Hagen ’14 utilized the EA to measure the Carbon/Nitrogen ratios of local vegetation for his Biology thesis with Prof. Manuel Morales. Also, from the Fall 2013 to Spring 2014 the lab hosted Marcel Brown ’15 and Gabby Sua ’17 (Spring only) working with Prof. Dave Richardson to develop both a soil phosphate extraction and detection method.

-Jay Racela, Technical Assistant, Center for Environmental Studies