Environmental Issues Take Center Stage

In the Nov. 14 Raiser Environmental Fellowship Assembly, Caroline Ingram ’15 and Rachel Rubin ’15 both gave fascinating presentations about their Raiser Fellowship experiences over the summer. Established in 1995, the Raiser Environmental Fellowship is a summer study-travel program available to National Cathedral School juniors. Sponsored by NCS alumna Skye Raiser '85, the fellowship funds a student's or students' self-designed scientific research program in the fields of environmental science, biodiversity, conservation, or the impact of environmental degradation or pollution on human life. 

 

Caroline's project was, "Increasing Maize Crop Yields through Soil and Seedling Monitoring." She traveled to Cornell University in Ithaca, NY to work with Dr. Rebecca Nelson in her lab, researching Maize productivity and disease as they relate to the seed’s surroundings and yields. The ultimate goal of the lab is to find efficient ways for farmers in developing regions of Sub-Saharan Africa to produce more food.

During her time in the lab, Caroline’s work focused on finding cheap and therefore accessible phenotyping tests for farmers. Phenotyping, observing qualities of an organism (in this case soil and plants) to determine it’s health, is used to increase farming yields. Ingram tested out the accuracy of the MultipseQ (beta-phase, low-cost, hand-held device) in measuring carbon dioxide as an indicator of health in soil and seedlings. The results of Caroline’s tests indicate that MultispeQ is accurate and easy to use in the field. 

 

Rachel’s project was, “Human Response to Environmental Change in Skaftartunga, Iceland.”  Rachel took part in the North Atlantic Biocultural Organisation (NABO) Comparative Island Ecodynamics in the North Atlantic Project, a transdisciplinary effort that studies two historic communities in Greenland and Iceland, which had radically different outcomes when faced with rapid environmental change. Rachel’s research focused on southwestern Icelandic settlers in the dark ages using environmental archaeology. Along with her team from NABO, Rachel excavated and cleaned soil to search for and catalog artifacts like animal bones which can offer insight into farming techniques, such as human use of animals (ie. dairy vs. meat production).

Other archeological research methods included soil core samplings. The layers of dirt and volcanic ash in the sample, were gathered and sent the lab for dating which will be used to date the artifacts that were cataloged.  The final results of the research collected during Rachel’s trip are not yet in, but she said that the trip had a great impact on her future field of study and that it exposed to her the vast opportunities in science.