REU
Interdisciplinary Watershed Studies at
the College of William and Mary
2007 marks the fifth year of an interdisciplinary summer internship program to study watersheds at the College of William and Mary. Funding is from the National Science Foundation's Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. Each year we select 10 undergraduates from across the country to participate in student research projects mentored by faculty in environmental geology, biology, sociology and economics. The cohort of students works with W&M faculty mentors to determine the impacts of changing watershed land use in scientific and socio-economic contexts. Students complete research projects on the 16-ha Lake Matoaka (the oldest man-made impoundment in Virginia) and in streams and associated uplands of the two watersheds in which the college owns property. Investigations of current hydrogeologic and ecological status in the two watersheds are completed by determining stream discharge characteristics and responses to stormflows, spatial variation in water quality, lake-wide budgets for water, sediment and nutrients, and population/community structure in aquatic and terrestrial portions of the watersheds. Because the status of the watershed systems is the result of historical changes in land use, sociologic and economic examinations of residents' perception of development, environmental protection and water and property rights are used to determine the current direction and strength of population and market forcing functions. Access to a richly detailed history of the Colonial Williamsburg region allows us to develop a timeline of changes in watershed land use as a context for analysis of watershed structure and function.
For Summer 2007, our objective is to create a cohort of students and faculty to research the geology, biology, hydrology and chemistry of watersheds. Our "home-base" will be the watershed of the College of William and Mary, which includes numerous landscape elements such as lakes, streams, forested uplands, and developed regions.
Over the 10-week summer program, participants will live together on the College of William and Mary campus and work on projects at the new Keck Environmental Field Laboratory. Participants will identify a faculty mentor in the first week of the program. Daily meetings with mentors will help shape and refine specific research projects within environmental disciplines. Weekly, interdisciplinary meetings with faculty will allow the research cohort to present their findings across disciplines, receive feedback from all program participants, and discuss project directions. At the end of the summer program, students will give oral presentations of the results of their work in conference format where all faculty will be invited to attend. Over the subsequent academic year, students will work from their home institution to develop papers with project mentors for scientific publication as appropriate. Selected students will travel to regional conferences to make poster presentations of their research.
Visit the W&M Campus using the link for prospective students (look for the section called "Getting to Know WM") and take the Virtual Tour. REU students will be housed in Bryan, Harrison or Page Hall. Yes, all are air-conditioned, and it is a short walk from the dorms to the Keck Lab!
The 5,500 sq. ft. Keck Lab includes a wet lab with aquaria for research and demonstration. An analytical lab houses a CHN analyzer, two spectrophotometers, a freeze drier, a fluorometer, an autoclave, a muffle furnace, and assorted balances, drying ovens and other standard lab equipment. A field equipment room includes three different sediment coring apparati, ISCO water samplers, numerous conductivity, oxygen, and pH meters, and gauging equipment for stream discharge measurements. Three Trimble Geo-Explorer GPS units, two digital cameras, a digital video camera and hand-held radios are also available in the equipment room. The 20-seat teaching room in the lab is used for lectures, presentations and demonstrations. The computer room is loaded with Arcview GIS software, and a GIS technician is on staff at the Keck Lab to address student project needs. The administrative wing of the lab houses a large-format poster printer for student presentations and includes a fully electronic seminar room with on-screen Internet access and teleconferencing capabilities. Outside are canoes and john boats for lake/stream research. Located on the shore of Lake Matoaka, the Keck Lab is both spatially and temporally situated to provide logistical support for watershed research.