Nick- I am a freshman at Penn State Berks that is majoring in business and also on the baseball team. I plan on staying at Berks all four years.
Alex- I am a freshman at Penn State Berks and I am a business major, I plan to stay here all four years.
Tru- I am a freshman at Penn State Berks who is majoring in business and plays for the volleyball club. I plan to stay at Berks for all four years.
Mitch- I’m Mitch, I’m a junior at Penn State berks and I am a double major in criminal justice and psychology and plan to stay here all 4 years.
Research Issue
Pollution in water is increasing and that is why the Tulpehocken Creek Watershed Association exists. They go out and test the water for different chemicals and send out that information through their umbrella organization of Berks Nature to the public with the hope that this pollution is addressed. Working with Cindy, we tested the health of the streams by looking at the chemicals present in the water and also by looking at the critters that currently live in those streams. The critters are critical to assessing how polluted the stream is since most critters cannot live in water that is too polluted. We discussed the importance of buffer zones, shade and proper protection of streams, especially those that bring drinking water to the local population.
What We Actually Did
We got in contact with Cindy Murdough, a former teacher and a current Tulpehocken Creek Watershed Association volunteer, to test water at three different locations: Plum Creek, Cocoosing Creek and Furnace Creek. Each of these locations got progressively more polluted due to the amount of chemicals going into the water and the buffer zones available for those streams. We tested the water for the different forms of life that it contained and also the amount of different chemicals. This gave us results on the water quality and helped us understand the streams way more.
Reflection
This class and project as a whole has been a very fun experience for us. We got exposed to a bunch of environmental concepts that we never took into consideration. These topics that we covered can be integrated into our daily lives and with this new knowledge, we can now better our environment and hopefully make a positive impact on our planet. This project was very fun because doing this water testing was something that our group has never experienced. Meeting Cindy was awesome and she was extremely helpful in teaching/showing us the proper way to run all of the tests to get an accurate measure of the water quality. Doing a project like this truly stuck with us and we love the fact that we didn’t just learn something brand new, we also did a service to our local community.