December 6, 2016
Across 350 kilometers of the The Middle Rio Grande River students and their teachers from kindergarten through college serve as field scientists for the Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program (BEMP). Bosque means ‘forest’ in Spanish, and refers to the vast cottonwood forest that straddles the Rio Grande. Currently there are 32 study sites, and over 1 million data points are collected each year by many local students who would otherwise have limited access to environmental education. This Albuquerque-based program shows how local science initiatives can connect people to their landscapes while helping inform resource management decisions.
By Sean O’Neill
BEMP is committed to helping students succeed in all aspects of the scientific process: constructing hypotheses, performing hands-on research, analyzing their results, and communicating their findings. Our students know that they are making important contributions to a body of long-term data on the Rio Grande watershed. This information is used by policy makers and other local stakeholders. Many students also use it to educate their peers, families and communities. One area where students are doing this important work is water quality testing.
BEMP staff and students collected water quality information from the Rio Grande, paralleling ditches, and groundwater wells at 11 sites throughout the Middle Rio Grande in 2011 and from 2014 to 2016. Throughout these collections, high school and college students participated in testing surface and groundwater for pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, conductivity and specific conductance. To do this, students actually have to get into waders and get out into the river!
Additional testing for E.coli, fecal coliform, anions (nitrate, phosphate, chloride, bromide, nitrate, ammonium, fluoride, and sulfate), pesticides, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) was performed on ditch and river samples (and a few groundwater wells). Four of the river sampling sites were tested for pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) using a single grab sampling technique performed by BEMP staff members.
Three Rio Rancho High School students participated in the data collection process and subsequently developed a research project analyzing this information, which they presented in several different forums. Their goal was to use their findings to educate others including their classmates in an AP Environmental Science class about the health of the Rio Grande. They also shared their knowledge with members of the public, students, teachers, UNM professors, business professionals and scientists at the 2016 Crawford Symposium. Their final display was a poster presentation in the New Mexico State Science Fair. These three Rio Rancho high school students wanted to inspire others to care about the quality of our precious river and encourage stewardship of our watershed. One of these students was later hired on with BEMP as a high school summer intern before she entered college.
BEMP staffers also aided in the development of two hydrology projects for eight high school students from Nex+Gen Academy. These students collected water quality data from six groundwater wells, the river, and ditch at the Valle De Oro and State Land Office BEMP sites. After collecting this information once a week throughout the month of September, they analyzed their results, wrote up reports, and presented their findings to their classmates. They also presented to several classes from Jefferson Middle School at the Valle de Oro on how they collected the data, what they discovered, and why the information is relevant to them and the community.
Encouraging students to be involved in hands-on collection of scientific data and to be confident in teaching others about their findings is one of the greatest aspects of citizen science. BEMP hopes that by continuing to conduct water quality studies, more students will be encouraged to use, present, and share this data as they create their own research questions and goals.
This and other BEMP posts can be found at the BEMPin’ It Up blog