Did You Know?
SoundCitizen has moved to University of Washington Tacoma. SoundCitizen, a community-based water sample network started at UW Seattle in 2008 under the leadership of Dr. Rick Keil is now based at the Center for Urban Waters at UW Tacoma under the direction of Dr. Joel Baker.
SoundCitizen involves local volunteers and school groups to collect water samples from Puget Sound and other local waterways and perform a series of basic chemical tests. They then mail samples to the Urban Waters labs to be further analyzed by undergraduate students doing research. The program tries to make the complex topic of water pollution more understandable and relevant to everyday life by testing for common cooking spices — such as vanilla around Thanksgiving — in addition to serious pollutants.
Since the program’s inception, dozens of community organizations and hundreds of individual volunteers and K-12 students have collected samples throughout Puget Sound and it's in-feeding watersheds. More than 95% of the returned samples have passed initial quality control screening and have been fully processed for emerging pollutants and cooking spices. The scientific findings illustrate strong seasonal links between household activities (cooking, cleaning etc.) and the subsequent appearance of chemical “fingerprints” of these activities in aquatic and marine environments.
Amanda Bruner, outreach coordinator for both SoundCitizen and The Math Science Leadership (MSL) program, also shares an interest in increasing the number of women and minorities pursing careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) related fields. “By moving to Tacoma, we are in the unique position to create a rich network of support for STEM career pathways by connecting middle and high school youth to UW Tacoma undergraduates and faculty directly through programs like MSL. We're also enhancing undergraduate education by creating opportunities for UW Tacoma undergraduates to conduct professional research in a state-of-the-art facility, which makes them more competitive applicants for jobs or graduate school.”
News from COSEE National:
The Best of COSEE Hands-On Activities is now online!
Thanks to contributions from across the COSEE Network, an excellent selection of over 50 proven hands-on activities have been collected. COSEE OCEAN team members have developed a user-friendly online interface and formatted the activities according to subject, grade level, duration, and Ocean Literacy principle. The result is a collection packed with a wide range of hands-on activities that scientists can select from to enhance their classroom visits. The collection is available both online and as a CD. For more information contact Bob Chen.
