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All right, so this summer, I
spent about 20 hours a week

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in a canoe, rowing to
different GPS points

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to try to take data
at different locations

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in order to learn about
the aquatic vegetation.

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So, I worked with
Eleanor Robinson,

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who was my mentor supervisor for
the Roger Tory Peterson Estuary

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Center.

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You'll get into
what that is later.

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She was the director of the
Roger Tory Peterson Estuary

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Center, and one of the board
members of the Connecticut

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Audubon Society.

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I also worked with Jim
Arrigoni, who is a SUNY ESF

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aquatic ecology PhD candidate.

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He will be doing his
dissertation sometime

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in November, and he was
also my mentor supervisor

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and he helped us a lot
with the logistical details

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of the scientific study,
how to conduct the research,

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and how to do the
analysis of the data.

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We also worked with
Allison McCall.

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She is an MHC alum
from the class of '76.

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And she provided
us housing, and is

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on the board of directors for
the Roger Tory Peterson Estuary

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Center, and is the
one that formed

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the connection
between Mount Holyoke,

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and the Roger Tory
Peterson Estuary Center.

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I also worked with
Leila Kouakou who

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is a fellow MHC student here.

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So the Roger Tory
Peterson Estuary center

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is a branch of the
Connecticut Audubon Society.

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It is meant to be a
local center, in order

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to bring education
to the people living

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in Lyme, Connecticut and
the surrounding area.

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It is a newly formed center.

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I believe it turned a year
old sometime in September,

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so everything was very new.

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And we were kind of the
pioneers of doing this study,

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and we were also
just kind of helping

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with the logistical details, and
helping the Center reach out.

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Our research objectives
with this study

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were to look at the diversity,
abundance, and distribution

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of the submerged aquatic
vegetation in the Connecticut

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River estuary watershed.

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A similar study had
been done in 1997.

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That study said that we wanted--

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the people who did
that study wanted

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to continue studying
that watershed

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in order to see how the
vegetation changed over time.

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We weren't able to do
the entire estuary,

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but we did two small
coves, Whalebone Cove,

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and Selden Cove.

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Along with doing the study and
going out and doing research,

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and collecting the
data and analyzing it,

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we also did a lot in
the means of education.

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We went to a high school
program for in danger students,

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meaning that those students
were in danger of dropping out

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of school, so our objective
was to go and tell them

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about the study we
were doing, and perhaps

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get them interested in something
that they could do locally.

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So that they weren't
just confined

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to what the school
could give them,

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but they could get interested
in education in a new way.

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We also went to Camp Claire,
which was a local summer camp.

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It focused a lot on
environmental science,

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and getting involved
in your community,

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and trying to learn about the
environment that you live in.

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And so, we ran some
programs about getting

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to know vegetation
and how that interacts

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with an aquatic ecosystem.

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So, this study was
very important,

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because submerged
aquatic vegetation

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tends to form the
foundation of an ecosystem,

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because it not only provides
habitat, but a lot of times

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it is the beginning
of the food chain.

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And so this is what
ducks, snails, herons,

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like the one shown, turtles--

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We did find this gigantic
turtle, snapping turtle,

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he was probably about this big.

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It was really cool, but--

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Yeah, so that was
really important

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to this gigantic turtle that
has probably been living here

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for a hundred years, and it's
important to all the life that

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will continue to live there.

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Here's some of the main
species that we found.

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Luckily, most of the
species that we saw

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weren't invasive, although
there was a pretty big problem

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with invasive species
in Selden Cove

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that we can get into
a little bit later,

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but these are just some examples
of what we were looking at,

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and what we were finding.

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So I have some pictures
of me doing fieldwork.

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That's probably what
I spent more than half

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of my time doing.

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In order to actually look at
the plants and identify them,

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we needed to use a potato rake
to pull up that vegetation,

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and go through it, and
see what species we found.

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We also needed an anchor,
because our points were

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only about 30 meters apart.

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And so we need to
stay exactly where we

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were as we took this data.

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We also mapped all
of these points

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on Google Earth
with GIS technology,

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using a learning GPS to go
to those points later on.

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In Whalebone Cove, we had about
350 points, but in Selden Cove,

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we had well over a thousand.

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We collected data at
all of these points.

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We found some pretty
significant differences at least

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in Selden Cove.

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They were a little bit more
similar in Whalebone Cove,

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but there was still a
significance in difference.

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So, this is the difference
in Whalebone Cove

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and while the study
was published in 1997,

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the actual data
was taken in 1994,

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which is why it's in 1994.

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And so Whalebone Cove
was pretty similar,

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however, the difference in
[INAUDIBLE] is Vallisneria

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and sedum is coontail.

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And so, we noticed a
pretty dramatic difference

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in Vallisneria and
that it was kind

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of being replaced by other
plant species in the cove,

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and we aren't sure
if that will lead

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to some kind of
restoration in the future.

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In Selden Cove, the one
labelled MSPI is invasive,

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and so that was pretty
alarming to us to see--

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It was pretty alarming to us
to see, at least, what it was

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like in 1994 compared to now

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And so, this is hard
to explain, but there

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was more of the invasive
species there now,

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but more species are coming in,
and that was very concerning

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for us to see, because Selden
Cove had a lot more boats

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coming in from the river,
and so it was bringing

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new species in, and so while--

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It's changing the whole
composition of what's there,

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and so we're thinking
that there probably

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needs to be some
sort of restoration

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because it's changing
so drastically.

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That is the end of
my presentation.

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[APPLAUSE]

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