Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Issues concerning the environment aren't as simple to solve as they seem. Scientists could come up with solutions to specific problems, like climate change, but there is more to it. Just coming up with solutions doesn't get the job done. Laws have to come into play as well as community involvement so that these laws are being enforced. This is where interdisciplinary research comes into play. There are so many ways that people could do their part to combat issues concerning climate change. Scientists can use technology to run tests and experiments to find the most effective way to solve these issues. Politicians could install laws into place that could protect vulnerable areas around the country, and journalists could ensure that the gravity of these issues is being made aware to the public. These types of concepts tie into the importance of interdisciplinary research because multiple points of view are needed to solve and analyze issues from different perspectives. During this program, I have had the opportunity to work with Erin and Laura. Erin is on the anthropology team, and Laura is on the biology one. Each of their projects is going to make important contributions toward analyzing issues concerning the local watershed. 

Erin has been a great help by providing me with some contacts that were used to spread more awareness about my survey. Being on the psychology team has made me realize that it comes with a lot of complications. Getting the attention of people has been difficult, so it's important to spread the word about my project to as many people as I can. Erin gave me the contact name of a reporter that was able to make a story article about my project and publish it in the Colfax Messenger and the Glenwood City Tribune. This publication would allow me to reach a different audience other than the Menomonie community. This publisher was also able to give me advice on who else to contact so that I could make even more connections with farmers. The reporter even sent the information about my survey to the people that control the Colfax Red Cedar Preserve and Recreation Area Facebook page, so that my survey could also be posted there. This just shows how communicating and working with others allows for the opportunity to meet other people and make connections. 

Laura is using GIS (Geographical Information Systems) to determine the areas of cropland that have the greatest potential for nutrient runoff, and how this could be used to find the best areas for conversion of grassland. One aspect of my project has to do with specific management practices that farmers choose to implicate on their farms and the number of farmers that do these things around the area. Transect survey data can be used to get a sense of what percentage of farmers in the watershed are currently doing certain management practices. Laura and I were talking about these practices and how cool it would be if GIS created maps that showed the different management practices that are being used by different farmers. This work would certainly be complicated but it would help provide people with a visual of what farmers in their community are doing. All of our projects tie to issues concerning the watershed in different ways. Using our own experiences and things we have learned to help each other is what's going to allow us to have stronger projects. 

Maps, GIS, and Beyond

From the start, the LAKES REU has emphasized the need for interdisciplinary research to address the water quality problems that the community faces. As I progress through my project, I have learned more about how important it is to incorporate fields of research other than your own. Each discipline can inform the others and, in this case, limnological knowledge is imperative to understand so that our projects can accurately reflect the problems in the watershed. Also, interdisciplinary research allows us to determine what problems are of the greatest importance and to solve problems more thoroughly.

My project will present the areas of cropland that have the greatest potential for nutrient runoff and are therefore the best areas for conversion to grassland. This research topic is already interdisciplinary, as I put my environmental science knowledge to work within a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) framework. The background knowledge I have is integral for understanding the variables that make an area more prone to nutrient runoff. Additionally, GIS is an incredible tool that can be incorporated into interdisciplinary research for analysis and visualization. With so much data available, there is great potential for incorporating different topics to identify trends and answer questions. And mapping can benefit almost any field, as maps can help communicate difficult topics and display data in a way that the public can appreciate. I have discussed making maps with several fellow students, including the Colfax Red Cedar Preserve project, which could benefit from a map of the general area or of current restoration projects.

Furthermore, after finding the potential conversion area, I am looking to include the amount of corn or beef that could be raised on the land as well as the financial worth of those amounts. The work on grass fed beef could come in handy, and will provide a unique perspective on the proposition, different from my own. With the inclusion of the economics research, I will be able to present a more persuasive project that people can more fully understand.

Moreover, discussing the community and phosphorus pollution issue with the anthropology and psychology folks gives me a broader perspective and allows me to understand the stances of the community on the issue, as well as what they are willing to do to address it. There is no point in proposing natural science-backed plans if there is no support or it does not benefit the community. In the anthropology projects, they are seeking the balance between the science and the people so that the land is managed in a way that can support the ecosystem but also be backed by the community. Overall, interdisciplinary research allows us to more fully comprehend the issues at hand. And maps can help tell the story of almost any discipline’s research in a way that grants more people access to important knowledge.

We're All in This Together

For an issue as complicated as phosphorus pollution, interdisciplinary research is necessary to bring about applicable solutions. Interdisciplinary research uses the skills and knowledge of each person on the team to mutually strengthen each other's work. With this approach, everyone's work is more thoughtful and well-informed than if we all stuck to just one field. As phosphorus pollution is a biological problem, having a firm understanding of those elements has been key to me being able to talk to people in an informed way for my anthropology work. Likewise, understanding the realities of the political and social landscape in this area is critical to inform the STEM research so that we can understand what kind of solutions are likely to be adopted. This balance between the disciplines on the LAKES REU team has been critical for my work here.

For one, this past week I collaborated with Laura, one of the biology team students, to get started on a GIS project I might want to use for my final poster. My research centers around the Colfax Red Cedar Preserve and Recreation Area and how that space can be used to engage the community in discussions about phosphorus pollution. To get a sense of what other public lands there are around water in the Red Cedar watershed, I want to create a map that specifically highlights those areas. Since Laura has a lot of experience with GIS, I asked her where to get started. She pointed me to some DNR resources that show all their land and suggested some spots to look for maps that might have already been created. As I continue to work on this project, I’m sure I will be reaching out to her again for guidance and support.

Photo: Ferry Pond as seen from the Colfax Red Cedar Preserve and Recreation Area

As another example, I’ve also been working with both Nidia and Phoebe on the psychology team. With Phoebe, I worked with her so that I could get some questions put on her survey. I wanted to get a broad sense of how much people in the area know about the preserve and what kind of stuff they want to see there. Considering the limits of my ability to interview a broad spectrum of people in the community, conducting a survey seemed like the best way to find the answers I’m looking for. With the expertise of the people on the psychology team, I was able to refine my questions to make sure they were clear enough to get useful answers. Additionally, I used a connection I made with a local reporter during my research to help Nidia spread the word about her survey. With this mutually beneficial type of interaction and teamwork, I think all our projects will be more well-rounded.

Farm Technology Days

 

Anna Hansen and Audrey Williams

Farm Technology Days

Farm Technology Days is a 3-day event that was hosted in Loyal Wisconsin this year. This is a place for the community to go and see the newest farming equipment in the industry. For a picture of how big this event is, last year they had over 52,000 visitors and 520 vendors. We decided to go to Farmtech Days to try and find out more information about how kidney beans are harvested and how farmers decide when to irrigate their land. There is a lot of generational knowledge when it comes to farming, so everyone does things a little bit differently. Not every farm keeps data on when they water and how many gallons they put on their fields. Each farmer also starts their harvest at a different time, and the equipment that they use varies. We decided to talk with a couple different groups of people on these topics.

Chippewa Valley Bean, our corporate partner, was the first booth that we visited. At the CVB Booth they had a Pickett Equipment Twin Master Bean Combine. This combine was designed specifically to be gentler on kidney beans during the harvest because there is a larger payout for farmers per acre if the skin of their kidney beans is intact. Zach Bacon, from Bacon Farms in Hancock Wisconsin, explained to us that when they first got into Kidney Bean farming that there was a learning curve when it came to harvesting. After a few small hiccups, they found that harvesting slow can help them get a higher quality bean, and a better yield. Regular combines can work for harvesting kidney beans, but they sometimes get smashed, causing a delay in operations. Bacon explained to us that using a combine made specifically for kidney beans made the process go a lot smoother.

The farmers know when the best time to harvest is because their bean plants start to turn yellow as they stop producing pods. How yellow and dry they let them get varies depending on the experience of the specific farmer. They want to wait until the pods 'feel like buckskin', explained CVB agronomist Joshua Johnson. This means that the dried pods feel leathery. If farmers wait any longer, the pods will be too brittle and could break at the wrong time during harvest. However, they can't harvest too early because then the pods won't be mature enough. The process of harvesting kidney beans starts first with a One-Step system, a piece of machinery that uses old school technology to loosen up the roots of the kidney bean plant. The one step system gets rid of the need to cut off the kidney bean plants by hand. Next the Pickett Equipment Combine comes through and pulls the entire plant up into an auger. This auger then helps separate the beans from the pods and other organic material. The beans then fall onto a shaker table where more dirt and rocks get separated from the crop, while also polishing the beans.

            The problem that we were asked to solve is “How many gallons of water does it take to grow a CWT of kidney beans”. Throughout the past couple weeks of research, we have come to find that it isn’t about how much rainfall there is, or how much water is given to the plants through irrigation, the problem that we need to solve is what soil moisture will produce a CWT of kidney beans. This information is very hard to find as not many people consistently measure the soil moisture of their fields, many farmers just walk out into the field and feel the dirt in their hands to see if it is moist enough. This has worked for generations of farmers, and it all comes through experience, however this is not collectable data that can be used for research.

            With that information, we went out and walked around and look at the rest of the booths at Farm Tech Days. One booth that we wanted to look at was Precision Planting. At the Precision Planting Tent, there was a planter that had a probe connected to it that can measure soil moisture. The soil moisture is collected while the seeds are being planted so this machine would be able to give us soil moisture data on the planting date. Another booth that we visited was Valley Irrigation. This vendor sold Aqua Tracs, which can measure soil moisture was often as every 30 min. This piece of equipment can be very useful to see data over a long period of time. Either of these pieces of equipment would be very to help solve this problem so the next step will be to see if any farmers that we are working with have this equipment or see if we are able to get our hands on some of this equipment to find some date.

Week 4

 

Blog Post Week 4

Anna Hansen and Audrey Williams

            As we begin week 4, we are almost ½ way through our summer research program. The past three weeks we have been doing lots of lit review, doing lots of calculus review, working with some data, as well as having a little fun.

            During our first week of the summer, we did lots of review of calculus concepts. It was very nice to have a refresher of all these concepts as we hadn’t taken a calculus class for over a year. We have realized how almost everything that we learned in calculus one will come in handy this summer while trying to find how much water a kidney bean needs to grow. Derivatives, antiderivatives, and differential equations are something that will be useful in this project. We can use differential equations to show rates such as transpiration, assimilation, plant mass, and soil moisture. Derivatives can also tell us about the rate of change especially when the rate of change is increasing or decreasing. Overall, we have learned that calculus one is probably one of the most important classes we have taken.

            Another very important part of what we have been doing is lots of lit review. When we read articles, we are looking for information that looks like the problem that we are trying to solve. We have found lots of articles about topics such as corn and other legume yields, how much fertilizer to use, or how much sunlight to use. We are hoping that these other articles will help us to find a similar concept to what we are doing and will be useful to us.

            Our last task that we have been working on quite often is organizing data. We received data from Chippewa Valley Bean that showed us the net bean weight in pounds as well as how many acres they planted on that year. From there we found the number of pounds that were grown on each acre. We also found data from the National Weather Station that gave us rainfall in inches from May 1^st to September 1^st which is the average growing season for a bean plant. In the future we plan to graph a scatter plot with the pounds/acre and inches of water data.

            Finally, you can’t just work all the time, you must have a little bit of fun! We ended week three with a canoe trip down the Red Cedar River. All the Lakes Reu students and mentors got into seven canoes, and we took about three hours till we took out our canoes at the Downsville boat launch. We started with a little tutorial on how to paddle, then we were off. We had only biked down the Red Cedar trail, but it was much prettier to canoe right down the middle.

 

           

 

Limnological Sampling is no Joke!

 Interdisciplinary studies have always called to me, so much so that when I first applied to colleges I only looked at schools that offered an interdisciplinary major in my preferred field. I ended up at Smith College, on their environmental science AND policy track, and I relished in taking just as many courses with the biology, geology, and data science departments as I did with the government, english, and sociology departments. My first two years of college were not the first time that I had experienced an emphasis on interdisciplinary work, however. Starting in middle school, my educational environment heavily centered the design thinking process as well as project-based learning. The ultimate goal behind these educational models is to encourage growth in educational settings. This growth can take many different shapes, but in myself I noticed a budding interest in grappling with complex problems through collaboration. The design thinking process encouraged me to deeply examine the needs of others and come up with solutions, while project-based learning helped me build those solutions into something concrete, usually alongside others. I have carried these skills with me throughout my college classes and internships, although my first look at truly self-guided research is occurring this summer. 

When I joined the LAKES REU program, I only had a general idea of what my project might be. I knew that I would be studying phosphorus pollution, and that I would be performing a style of research I had no experience with—ethnographic research. I also knew that I would likely be working alongside other students. However, I didn’t know that my form of data collection would consist almost entirely of conducting, transcribing, and coding interviews. While this experience was new and exciting, I had hoped to, at some point, gain some experience with limnological sampling. I reached out to Dr. Nicole Hayes, a professor in Stout’s biology department who has a team of students sampling Lakes Tainter and Menomin this summer. I was able to set up a time to go out on Lake Tainter with her team, and ended up spending roughly 5 hours immersing myself in a sampling experience. After setting up the research vessel, a surprisingly sturdy inflatable boat, we took off with a portable motor, a bag full of rocks as an anchor, and two tubs full of sampling equipment.

When we got to our sampling spot, I noticed what Dr. Hayes would describe as a “paint layer” of Microcystis cyanobacteria. Also visible were Aphanizomenon cyanobacteria, which resembled small green worms beneath the surface. It was striking how green the lake was on this particular day. I then assisted with testing and recording the dissolved oxygen levels and water temperature at different meter depths. Other tests measured light absorption, pH, and conductivity. I also got to perform a water transparency test using the Secchi Disc, a circular disc with alternating black and white quadrants. I lowered the disc into the water until I couldn’t see it anymore, and then recorded the depth. We then collected water samples and headed back to shore. After disassembling the boat, we returned to the lab on Stout’s campus. I assisted in the first few steps of a nutrient limitation experiment, which consisted of portioning out the lake water we had just collected, and pipetting either a nitrogen or phosphorus solution, or both, into the flasks. Those flasks, along with controls, were then placed in a special fridge with monitored light and temperature. Eventually, the lake water would be filtered to determine total chlorophyll concentrations, and which nutrient (phosphorus, nitrogen, or both) was in lowest availability relative to phytoplankton demand. Since there was only so much that I could help with at this stage, I watched another one of the students perform a filtration protocol and then wrapped up my day.

Overall, my time with Dr. Hayes’ team helped me understand that I am entirely capable of assisting with limnological sampling and experiment protocols. While this process was new to me, I was able to catch on quickly and immerse myself entirely in the experience. 

When I think about the value of interdisciplinary research, what sticks out to me the most is the ability to interface with many different stakeholders about the same issue. For the last month and half, I have been sitting in meetings and interviewing people with drastically different backgrounds. I have met with government officials, watershed managers, environmental health specialists, community organizers, scientists, and educators, all of whom are deeply invested in the issue of nutrient pollution in the Red Cedar Watershed. While I have learned how to “speak the language” of local government officials by citing different relevant codes and ordinances, my time sampling with Dr. Hayes’ team gave me the vocabulary I needed to interface with other professionals at the table. With the ability to understand both the science AND policy behind the issue of pollution in the watershed, I can more readily make connections with stakeholders and participate in the problem solving process.

Halfway There

            The value of interdisciplinary work is tremendous. As is especially the case for engineers such as myself, researchers have a tendency to tunnel in on their project or field. In this pursuit of higher knowledge, they forget the “daily applicability” and “immediate public impact” aspects of research, which cannot be underrated. Having tunneled my fair share already this summer, I am reminded of why I chose to spend my summer in Menomonie, not to create a new chemical filter(as was my original hope) but ultimately to make a proverbial dent in the efforts to clear Lake Menomin for safe use. 

I’ve learned how to pursue this best as an engineer from two other disciplines, biology and psychology. My partner Cody and I started working with the biology team very early on in our research process. At first, they provided us with knowledge about the remediation abilities of ecosystems such as wetlands. But the most important information they provided us was that there was little to no hard data on Lake Menomin’s nutrient levels and health. Moreover, the data that did exist was not on a platform where it was easily readable and any researcher could obtain it. Learning this inspired our engineering team to change our focus from water purification to water monitoring.

We hope that our data will help limnologists studying questions such as whether the reservoir has become anoxic or whether primary production is happening at a faster rate than secondary production can compete with. The repetition of measurements multiple times a day can help these scientists determine under what circumstances anomalies will occur.

This far into the program, it has become clear that solving a problem with an expensive and complex solution is not “solving” at all, it is only getting halfway there. It is essential to mobilize the people of Menomonie to be able to take care of their lake and carry the work of researchers after research programs reach their conclusion, so that technology produced does its due diligence. Using a LoRA network to generate data for lake health and publishing this data for free on the web will increase public visibility and bolsters citizen science, enabling more people to understand the nuances of the problem as well as the part that they can play in improving the situation. 

In addition to working with biology, we’ve learned from psychology. The psych team mentor, Sarah, suggested that we keep User Interface/User Design in mind when creating our website or app that we’re going to push data to. A good user interface and data that is expressed in an interactive or layman terms fashion increases the amount of individuals that are able to make use of the data and be part of the solution. There is a large barrier of understanding between much of the general public and technological solutions, but we want to bridge that divide in our project. 

In the next couple of days, the engineering team will be constructing the physical setup for our sensing units, which will utilize a LoRA(long-range) network to communicate and collect data. We are excited to see what this last portion of the project will yield for us and our colleagues.