For my Science and Global Change Practicum, I worked in Dr. Sujay Kaushal’s Biogeochemistry lab, located here on the University of Maryland campus. The lab’s goals are to analyze the health of freshwater ecosystems, primarily in the College Park Area, and to look at this through the lens of how human activities impact these streams, and what we can do to reduce these impacts.
I performed a variety of tasks during my time in the lab. Some tasks were done every day I was in the lab or very close to it, while others were more sporadic. The most frequent tasks were stream sampling, and lab upkeep. Stream sampling involves going out to four sites on/near the university campus, and gathering water samples from each stream, as well as gathering water quality data through use of the handheld YSI multiparameter probe, which is a portable instrument that allows us to gather various parameters on-site, such as the pH, oxidation-reduction potential, temperature, and salinity of the water. Lab upkeep was primarily acid washing, where we rinse bottles and other lab equipment, soak them in an acid bath, then rinse them again in order to remove organic contaminants. Now onto the more sporadic tasks, one was running samples on the Aqualog, another instrument in the lab which measures the absorbance and emissions of various wavelengths of light in order to determine the concentration of organic matter in the samples. This would have been a more frequent task except that the Aqualog broke down shortly after I entered the lab, and was not repaired until about when I was done for the summer. Another task I was involved in was ICP post-processing. The ICP-OES is a spectrophotometer which measures the concentrations of various ions within the water samples. Post-processing is a procedure where we adjust various parameters on the ICP to calibrate the data. I was involved in this for a few hours once every two or three weeks or so. Another task I performed was running samples on TruLine probes, another instrument used to determine trace element concentrations. The instrument was new to the lab at the time, and through the results of my runs on the truline probes, I was tasked at least in part with trying to determine our methods for how we would use those probes. Without going too deep into every task, I was also involved in two stream synoptics, which are essentially a much more involved version of stream sampling, as well as one TOC-L run, which is another instrument in the lab, and in writing a scientific report looking at some of our lab’s data.
I learned a lot from my experience of working in the lab, and there were a multitude of different elements from our SGC program which were applicable to the project. Starting with the latter, one of the most important skills taught in colloquium which I used was reading scientific papers. In order to write the scientific report which was part of my practicum, I had to read a lot of scientific literature in order to gain important context related to the report, and important previous data related to what I was writing about. The class during colloquium which discussed how to read scientific papers was definitely helpful in terms of making reading the scientific papers an easier experience, instead of having to jump right into it with next to no experience reading a scientific paper. Another skill from colloquium which I used was critical thinking skills, and following evidence properly. This was important in writing my scientific paper, but also in the work I did in the TruLine in the lab. We were still developing methods on how to use the TruLine probes at the time, and were getting very inconsistent data, and I use the critical thinking and evidential analysis skills taught in the colloquium when trying to figure out what was going on with the TruLine probes, and what we could consider changing about our procedures in order to make them be more accurate.
From my work in the lab, I gained a deeper understanding of the inner workings of the scientific method. In colloquium, and outside of scholars, we talk a lot about using the scientific method, and some of the general ideas surrounding it, but in the lab, I gained experience actually applying the scientific method, particularly on the TruLine probes, where essentially, looking at a discrepancy between the known concentrations of a solution and the concentration measured by the probe, we had to create hypotheses on why the probe wasn’t accurate, and then create methods we could use to fix these inaccuracies, and perform tests to see if this helped the probe’s accuracy in any way.
This experience has given me what I primarily wanted to get out of it; namely experience working in a scientific lab, and hands-on skills as well as analytic stills which I will bring into my future. I still plan on pursuing physics after this experience, however I am considering some fields closer to the work that I did in the lab, such as geophysics or chemical physics. To better prepare for my practicum, I probably could have looked deeper into the ideas behind freshwater ecosystem health and how we can analyze it, and there are probably a couple classes I could have taken that would have covered some of those ideas, however the people in the lab were super helpful at explaining these ideas along the way. My practicum project was not done in a team, however I did have to collaborate with others in the lab. I worked with the other interns in the lab routinely, as we went sampling together each week, and I worked with some of them on the TruLine probes pretty extensively. In these cases, we were in a collaborative role, somewhat similar to working on a group project. I also learned from the graduate students and lab manager, primarily when learning about many lab procedures, such as how to run samples on the Aqualog, and how to do post-processing on the ICP. In these cases, I was more of a student, learning from the more experienced people in the lab. In both cases, these are roles I’ve been used to; being a student through school and in college, as well as being in collaborative group projects.
I would absolutely recommend this practicum project to other students in SGC. The work we do in the lab is very closely connected to the topics covered in Science and Global Change; our lab is involved in work in science, and we are looking at how humans impact the environment, which are two of the big topics of SGC. While we are not looking at “traditional” climate change, i.e. fossil fuels and other greenhouse gas pollution, we are still looking at how humans impact the environment, and what we can do to mitigate the harmful effects.