2008 Woodie Awards
Student gains experience with Save the Bay through Coastal Fellows Program
Lindsay Lorenz
Issue date: 1/25/08 Section: Campus
1/25/08 - While most University of Rhode Island students were working on their tans or part-time jobs, senior Rebecca Allen spent her summer making a splash in the ecosystem.
Through URI's Coastal Fellows Program, an initiative that aims to engage undergraduates in environmental issues, Allen took a paid internship with Save The Bay, a local environmental group, which focuses its efforts on the Narragansett Bay.
The project is a follow-up to a similar survey conducted by the group in 2000.
From May to August, Allen and another intern conducted visits to 11 docks scattered from Providence to Bristol, spending 20 hours a week examining organisms that have claimed the docks as their habitat.
"Our objective was to see what new and potentially harmful species might be showing up in the bay," Allen said in a press release. "These non-native species could be taking over the habitats of native species and offsetting the natural balance in the bay. The project was the first step in determining what is here and where they are coming from so we can eventually do something about them."
Allen explained that there are many different ways new species are introduced to the bay, but the most common is in the ballast waters of ships, which can easily collect water from one region and distribute it in another.
After a short training session, Save the Bay sent the two interns out to local marinas and docks.
"I hadn't taken any marine biology courses before, so in the beginning we had to look everything up in books or bring samples in baggies to be identified by Save the Bay staff," she said in a press release.
Allen said it was definitely a learning experience. "At first we were a little confused," she said. But it wasn't long before the two were successfully recording water and atmospheric conditions and counting species.
Each visit, the interns would record their findings on measured-out segments of docks on hands and knees.
Through URI's Coastal Fellows Program, an initiative that aims to engage undergraduates in environmental issues, Allen took a paid internship with Save The Bay, a local environmental group, which focuses its efforts on the Narragansett Bay.
The project is a follow-up to a similar survey conducted by the group in 2000.
From May to August, Allen and another intern conducted visits to 11 docks scattered from Providence to Bristol, spending 20 hours a week examining organisms that have claimed the docks as their habitat.
"Our objective was to see what new and potentially harmful species might be showing up in the bay," Allen said in a press release. "These non-native species could be taking over the habitats of native species and offsetting the natural balance in the bay. The project was the first step in determining what is here and where they are coming from so we can eventually do something about them."
Allen explained that there are many different ways new species are introduced to the bay, but the most common is in the ballast waters of ships, which can easily collect water from one region and distribute it in another.
After a short training session, Save the Bay sent the two interns out to local marinas and docks.
"I hadn't taken any marine biology courses before, so in the beginning we had to look everything up in books or bring samples in baggies to be identified by Save the Bay staff," she said in a press release.
Allen said it was definitely a learning experience. "At first we were a little confused," she said. But it wasn't long before the two were successfully recording water and atmospheric conditions and counting species.
Each visit, the interns would record their findings on measured-out segments of docks on hands and knees.