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2012 Summer Collaborative Research Projects

This past summer, 8 students got funding from an Environmental Studies grant from the Mellon Foundation to do collaborative research. Professors Cathy Gibson, Josh Ness, and Bob Jones oversaw research projects in Michigan, Arizona, and Saratoga Springs.

Jen Harfmann ’14 and

Nonie (Norah)

Crossnohere ’14 spent the summer working with Assistant Professor Cathy Gibson at the University of Michigan Biological Station in northern Michigan, studying nutrient cycling in streams. Jen, who received most of her funding as a Schupf

Nonie Crossnohere presenting a poster of her summer research

Scholar, completed a project entitled “Nutrient uptake and decomposition rates of cottonwood and maple leaves in artificial headwater streams.” Nonie completed a project entitled “Investigating coupling of nitrogen and phosphorus uptake in artificial headwater streams.”

Alex Guest ’14 and Jordan Stark ’15 traveled to the Sonoran Desert with Josh Ness to study plant-animal mutualisms. Working at long-term research plots at the Tumamoc Hill Research Station outside Tucson AZ, Alex and Jordan worked with Josh to investigate how interactions between the barrel cactus and a protective ant are affected by changes in variation in both climate and landscape composition. Alex and Jordan jointly presented their findings in a poster entitled “Critical temperature matters: Animal foraging in a

changing Sonoran desert landscape”, and Jordan is continuing this research during the upcoming spring semester.

Bob Jones oversaw a collaborative research team of 4 students working to create an atlas of Skidmore’s woodland properties.

Melissa Green ’13 , Sondra Lipshutz ’13, Jeremy Rosen ’14, and

Matt Tatkow ’13, mapped all of Skidmore’s woodland properties (except for the North Woods), including the new 200-acre parcel acquired in December 2010. Mapped features included trails, dominant vegetation, soils, and wildlife habitats. The final project, the Skidmore Woodland Atlas, includes maps, photographs, and related documents.

Jeremy Rosen, Matt Tatkow, Sondra Lipshutz, and Melissa Green in front of their poster summary of the Skidmore Woodlands Atlas

2012 ES Summer Internship Awards

This past summer, 5 students successfully competed for funding from the ES Program to undertake a summer internship in any field related to environmental studies. The goal of the internship experience was to enhance and expand the students’ academic and research interests by connecting them to personal learning goals. Sarah Arndt, Lauren Bosche, Charlotte Levy, Eliza Sherpa, and Kate Taylor each spent the summer honing their interests and developing their skills with a variety of organizations.

Sarah Arndt '14, ES Major, Local Foods Assessment

This past summer, Sarah continued her work with the Boston-based Real Food Challenge (RFC) by calculating the percent of “real food” used in the Skidmore Murray-Aikins dining hall. The mission of the RFC is to “to harness the power of youth and universities to build a healthy, fair, and green food economy,” by shifting college food purchases away from industrial agriculture and towards sustainable local food (RFC website). In partnership with Sustainable Skidmore, Sarah did research and outreach to help Skidmore commit to buying 20% real food by 2020, a RFC goal. Beyond the numbers, Sarah strove to explore the value questions behind the RFC mission: What

kind of value system does Skidmore hope to portray through the food it offers? How do the food choices made by dining services help to educate students? Will these choices affect how students understand a fair food system and affect their own food choices? These are questions that Sarah, dining services, and Skidmore students will continue to chew on for some time.

Sarah tends some Real Food growing in Skidmore gardens.

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