SMoCS updates!

Another amazing group of students are finishing up their second quarter of SMoCS.  The group projects they are working on are going to be something to behold - a comic book about MTCA, two documentaries, a lab project, and a modeling project.  We were able to blend journalism students with the environmental science students - making for some great collaborative relationships.  Stay tuned!

The newsletter for the Winter quarter SMoCS is out with a few contributions from the students :)

Another blog to follow

My grad student Stephanie Eckard has a great scientific blog called tiny matters.  It is definitely worth checking out...

https://tinymatters.jux.com/

"I am a scientist. I'm not in a position to answer that question but I'd be happy to refer you to an appropriate spokesperson."

Oh boy. Now the oil sands.  It isn't surprising that this is a source of contamination, so I'm not sure why this needs to be hushed up. Not letting scientists talk about the results of their work is suspicious - I can see if they talk about policy, but not letting them talk about science????

PAH contamination from the Oil Sands

Snow contamination from the Oil Sands

Today, on Thanksgiving, I have new hope for becoming a better cook.  Cooking is chemistry!  (Thanks Marcia for cluing me into this :)  )

New Science Adventure

I am headed out of the country for a bit.  I've been invited to participate in the American Alpine Club sponsored Climber/Scientist program.  We'll be in the Cordillera Blanco mountain range in central Peru doing science.  I'll be collecting water samples to later analyze for metal contamination.  With some of the world's largest metal mines near these mountains, there is a fairly unique situation for non-volatile metals of anthropogenic origin being transported to high altitude systems.  This year is pilot scale and we hope to continue the work over the next few years.

I'll post periodic updates on my blog.  The American Alpine Club has some information at this page.

If you are on Facebook, you can like The American Climber Science Program and see updates from everyone.

Cheers,  Ruth

Field trip to Hanford and PNNL

We had a great field trip this week with several of the students from the Science and Management of Contaminated Sites (SMoCS) class.  It was ten hours round trip, 2 vans, and 1 night with tours of the PNNL labs and Hanford.  We saw Dr. Nik Qafoku's labs where different waste forms are investigated.  The waste forms are the different ways that waste can be stored.  Vitrification, for example, essentially turns the waste into glass - that is one waste form. We also saw the 300 Area IFRC Field Test Site.  This is a site with uranium contamination in the ground water that PNNL scientists are studying.  On the second day, we toured Hanford and saw Reactor B, the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility (another name for the landfill where all of the low level radioactive waste is going), the vitrification plant, and a pump and treat plant. Really neat to see the science behind all of this! 

Student Contributions to Wikipedia

This year, the final project in my Aquatic Toxicology class was a Wikipedia article.  The students wrote on many topics, listed below.  Feel free to go in and help improve them, but I think they turned out very nice and I am happy they were able to contribute!

Aquatic Toxicology
Bioconcentration Factor
Biotic Ligand Model
Effects Range Low and Effects Range Median
Persistent, Bioaccumulative and Toxic Substances
Pollution Induced Community Tolerance