#ENVIR491

[ontizola]

Capstone Blog

This summer I am interning with the Chrysalis Forest School. This is an organization that works to provide childcare while also strengthening connections to nature. During my time at this internship, I have worked as a student facilitator. My duties include managing classrooms, leading lessons, and providing relief to other faculty when necessary.

I have learned during my time at the Chrysalis Forest School. For one, I feel as though I have a much better understanding of the struggles faced by educators. (Gosh, I like the kids that I work with, even on their worst days, but it is exhausting to manage groups of young students). In addition to this, I have learned a lot about the ways in which children interact with nature. I was expecting to observe more hesitance, especially when encountering things that may be uncomfortable, but this is much less common than previously predicted. There are still moments of apprehension, but I have noted that students tend to be much more adventurous. This has given me the opportunity to become more familiar with the ecosystems found in Seattle. I feel as though I have gotten the opportunity to learn about nature alongside the students I am monitoring.

One significant challenge I have faced during my time at this internship is related to my research. My original proposal was centered around human subject data collection, but I realized that it would be difficult to proceed with. Based on my schedule, and the varied schedule of the students involved, I would not be able to collect enough consistent data to accurately prove/disprove my research. Luckily, I set up a meeting with my faculty advisor, and she helped me revise my original research plan. I am now planning to center my final project around literature-based research. So far, I feel as though this transition has given me more of an opportunity to use peer-reviewed studies to actively develop lessons and management strategies at my internship. I feel as though it allows me to be more engaged with my work rather than constantly focused on data collection.

Here is a picture from my internship. A group of students were working hard to construct a fort, and I think they did a great job! (I censored some faces, so sorry if it looks creepy).

My question for you is centered around your experiences with nature. Can you think of the ways in which a positive experience with nature has shaped your current view of the environment?

[palmerpoeblog]

Developing an Environmental Impact Study on the Ballard to UW Light Rail Corridor

Tumblr Post

Hey all! It’s Palmer here, hoping everything is going well with your summer internships! I have been given the opportunity to work with Seattle Subway Foundation’s 501c3 branch! Seattle Subway is a non-profit, volunteer-based organization working to expand access to the Light Rail in the greater Seattle area. Their primary goals involve public outreach and grassroots advocacy to spread awareness of the benefits of public transportation projects. Currently they are working to hold local leaders and transit organizations accountable to the goals and timelines approved by voters in the ST3 extension plan. My internship is mainly focused on developing a Draft Environmental Impact Study based on the proposed extensions for ST4, which are delineated on the Seattle Subway Vision Map (pictured below) and have not been approved yet by voters. My research is focused on the Ballard to Sand Point Line Extension, which would connect U-District with the already approved Ballard Link Extension which is projected to be completed in 2035. I have been lucky enough to collaborate on this portion of the project with Mae Langford (also pictured below) who has been incredibly helpful in this process. Together, we have organized site visits to the Ballard/Fremont region to visualize possible Link station locations along SR99 and 46 Avenue and researched many of the residential and commercial impacts that a project of this scale may illicit. The other aspect of the internship has involved public outreach and social media. For this portion of the project, I have been attending various farmers markets and events in Capitol Hill, Chinatown/International District, and Ballard, where I have worked to spread awareness of current events involving transit projects, rallied support for Seattle Subway Foundation on social media, and garnered community awareness of Seattle Subways mission to expand grade separated transit systems attractive enough to compete with private automobiles.

One of the most interesting things I have come to realize during my time with Seattle Subway Foundation and my associated research is just how much of the public realm is dedicated to private vehicles, and how that infrastructure has affected the quality of life for pedestrians and urban dwellers. Most of the city’s land mass is developed for the automobile, which has created expensive and undesirable consequences for residents and municipalities. Some notable impacts include urban heat island effects, ambient air and noise pollution, stormwater contamination and expensive diversion systems, unsafe conditions and limited autonomy for children and young persons, economic losses resulting from traffic congestion, reduced access for the elderly and disabled, and reduced opportunities for socialization and community interactions. Cities with car-centric transportation infrastructure are less permeable and sprawl outwards from the urban center, gobbling up arable farmlands and wildlife habitat, at the heavy expense of taxpayers.

The greatest challenge so far has been in coordinating the actual Draft Environmental Impact Statement. These documents are often many hundreds of pages long and incorporate the help of electrical engineers, environmental scientists, political scientists, policy experts, transit authorities, and many others. Mae and I have a good deal of knowledge regarding environmental impacts and the tenants of sustainability, but we are not engineers, nor are we environmental lawyers, so this process has involved quite a bit of background research and collaboration with our site supervisors Keith Kyle and Arthur Backus, who have helped us visualize the finished product and narrow our research topics. They have provided valuable academic and media sources to illuminate some of the more confusing or complex aspects of drafting an impact study, and how current events have affected timelines and locations of future Light Rail stations. By collaborating with my site supervisors, meeting with my faculty advisor, and scheduling interviews with transit experts, I have no doubts that Mae and I will be successful in developing a Draft EIS on the Ballard to Sand Point Link Extension that will be useful to Seattle Subway in their mission to educate the public and influence decision makers.

For my questions, I would love to know how public transportation has or has not benefited you personally, and how often you utilize the Link Light Rail during your day to day activities? Or, how do you think Sound Transit and Seattle should manage some of the negative impacts of transit expansion like gentrification, construction delays, and/or displacement?

[jordanp2]

Jordan Priest ENVIR491 Capstone Blog

Greetings fellow ENVIR491 internship folks! My name is Jordan and I am excited to be joining your cohort this quarter and in the fall! I got off cycle with my capstone project, so I will be finishing up my capstone with ya'll. I made this blog post in winter quarter, but I want to get to know you folks and so I am going to treat this as an introduction. I have just made a couple of updates to the post for relevancy.

Hi! My name is Jordan Priest, my pronouns are he/they, and I am a senior. I am interested in environmental education, public transportation planning/urban design, and water pollution. I love wetlands as well, I think they are so cool!

I had the pleasure of working with the Seattle Subway Foundation (SSF).  They are a Seattle-based nonprofit organization that advocates for the best possible public transportation plans for the city of Seattle. SSF works with local community groups, politicians, and the public to spread awareness about light rail and propose ballot measures.  More specifically, their objective is to help build an accessible and reliable light rail system that serves the people of Seattle well. SSF have created a "Vision Map", which outlines their ideal light rail arrangement in the city. 

The bulk of my work with SSF has been to research one of the prospective lines on that map.  In particular, am looking at how a light rail line might run from the Olympic Sculpture Park area across to Madison Valley, and then South to the Mount Baker Transit Station, which I have nicknamed "The Gold Line" due to the golden color with which is depicted on SSF's vision map.  To do this work, I've been doing research remotely, interviewing experts, and making site visits.  The photo below is of me at the under construction station of Judkins Park, which will likely intersect with the Metro 8 corridor line I am investigating.   Everyone who I've met at SSF have been knowledgeable and enthusiastic, and I am thoroughly enjoying this chance to work with them.

One interesting thing about working at SSF is that everyone is working on a volunteer basis.  I have found that this changes the dynamic of the internship, because everyone feels just as motivated and excited about public transit as I am.  It is so inspiring to me to see all of the fantastic labor that SSF folks put into advocating for the accessibility of Seattle.  It also means that I have the privilege of working with people from different backgrounds and diverse day jobs.  In fact, I have been able to speak to several people who work at some of the places that I aspire to work for.

One challenge that I confronted during the project so far was the process I went through letting go of the concept of at-grade light rail for my line.  For context, I spent last summer studying light rail systems in Europe, including Amsterdam's efficient street-level tram.  I love the idea of a cheaper light rail that can be installed on existing streets, transforming the city into a rider-friendly place.  What I did not account for was that all the case studies I was looking at (Portland, Amsterdam, etc) were relatively flat.  It wasn't until my site supervisor took me on a trip to look at Capital Hill through the lens of building light rail tracks that I fully visualized the problem it would be to run light rail on the surface of such steep streets.  Now I realize the benefits of building rail underground or elevated. 

The question I pose to you is an approximation of one that I've been asking at the end of my interviews as well: imagine two streets run parallel to each other and you need to decide which one to put light rail on.  Would you rather have the rail run along a street full of houses or businesses?

[alishafoster]

ENVIR 491 Capstone with Defend Lumad Struggles

For my capstone project, I am working with Defend Lumad Struggles, a national grassroots org dedicated to amplifying the voices of the Lumad, the collective identity of Indigenous peoples in the southern Philippines. The Lumad are on the frontline defending their ancestral land from foreign-backed logging, mining, and agribusiness. Their defense of their land has been met with brutal repression from the US-backed Philippine military. Though they and their "Lumad Schools" -- community education centers that taught culturally relevant skills to strengthen their sovereignty -- have been criminalized and attacked until there are none left, the students of those schools continue to fight for their liberation.

Defend Lumad Struggles is a campaign in the US, rooted in contact with those on the ground and then waged primarily by Filipino diaspora groups. This year we want to focus our campaign on broadening our allyship with Indigenous and Indigenous-focused groups, as well as environmental and educational groups, in the US. We want to bring to light the connecting threads between these struggles, to inspire active solidarity.

My role is identifying points of unity between the Defend Lumad Struggles campaign and the mainstream environmental and environmental justice struggles in the US, as well as finding ways to communicate those unities outward in a way that motivates concrete action.

A challenge I’ve encountered in doing this work is the level of coordination it takes to keep a national campaign moving. I’ve been working with people from many different states and time zones, most of whom work full-time jobs given that the Defend Lumad Struggles campaign is entirely grassroots and volunteer-based. Scheduling a meeting with more than 5 people can get near impossible. With the extra time I have on my hands in comparison to the others, I have sometimes taken on the role of scheduling and updating the chats for various working groups. A similar challenge occurs when it comes to scheduling meetings with other groups, potential partners in the campaign – it takes a while to find their contact information, learn enough about the group to understand what kind of perspective or collaboration they can bring, and reach an agreement on next steps.

In the lulls between collaboration with DLS members or outside organizations, I apply my communication responsibilities to the day-to-day situations I find myself in. I talk to my friends and family about the Lumad struggle and the context behind it, and take notice of how they respond, what resonates with them. I critically read the environmental messaging that surrounds me in PoE, in Seattle, and online, and take note of what issues or language it brings to the front. I have also gotten used to taking some solo initiative and reaching out to groups as the opportunity presents itself.

Something I’ve been reflecting a lot on through the work of this internship is the huge range between different groups’ conceptions of “environmental activists” or “environmental issues”. In white, wealthy, suburban pockets of the US, the image of an environmental activist might be someone who recycles and has solar panels, or pushes for a law about clean energy. In the Black and brown communities where polluting facilities are disproportionately sited, environmental issues are recognized as intertwined with racist public policy and the financial gains of corporations from these policies. And in the countryside of the Philippines, where the military that forces you off your ancestral land is armed with drones and missiles made from the very minerals your land contains, where the motive and means of your oppression is one and the same, there is no ‘environmentalism’ that isn’t also international, and deeply political, and dangerous.

My task of identifying how to communicate the Lumad struggle to people who have only been exposed to a much more simplistic or individual version of environmentalism, has helped me look back on my own environmental and ideological development and piece together the intermediate steps that have led me to work with Defend Lumad Struggles. Recognizing that “humans vs nature” is a false binary; realizing the extent to which pollution and resource extraction are driven by political and economic power sharply skewed within and between nations; analyzing which climate solutions are dismissed as “unrealistic” and why… tracing my own path has helped me better understand where others are coming from, and remember how far I still have to go.

Quotes of a Lumad student in a @defendlumadstruggles post I helped make, a post to mark the 1-year anniversary of the massacre of 5 activists involved with the Lumad schools.

Questions:

How does the group you are working with for your internship describe or portray “environmental issues” or “environmental activism”? What or whom do they identify as the source of the issues? Do the issues cross US borders, and if so, is this mentioned?

Have you had to describe your group’s work to someone with not much prior knowledge of the issue, or a misconception of it? If so, how did you find points of unity? If not, what do you think would be a benefit or drawback to doing so?

Have you heard of similar cases to the Lumad? What are those similarities?

[tiffanyshin]

NOAA Black Abalone Juvenile Recruitment Habitat and Transplant Review 

Hello ENVIR 491 classmates! I hope that everyone is enjoying their internships. I’m Tiffany and I have been working on a remote research internship on black abalone conservation with NOAA Fisheries for my Capstone. Black abalone is an endangered species of marine snail found along the California coast in mostly rocky intertidal zones. However, recovery has been heavily impeded by disease (withering syndrome), overfishing, low densities and reproductive rates, chemical spills and spill response activities, and climate change. NOAA Fisheries convened a specialized task force, the Black Abalone Recovery Team (BART) to study, protect, and restore black abalone populations and work with partners to ensure the implementation of regulations and management plans to reduce poaching and increase the wild abalone population. This includes long-term population monitoring programs set up by UC Santa Cruz, the Navy, and the National Park Service. The final product of my internship will be two white papers that characterize the best practices and methods for black abalone transplantation and juvenile recruitment habitat studies. As part of my responsibilities, I am currently conducting an extensive literature review and interviewing black abalone experts.

One interesting thing I have found in my work is how small of a team is responsible for such important endangered species conservation. The BART consists of 9 members who all have an extensive background in marine sciences and have worked with abalone for more than two decades. These scientists are located all throughout the West Coast and they represent organizations and institutions such as the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), Universidad Autonoma de Baja California (UABC), California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), National Park Service, and the Navy. While these experts conduct fieldwork every year, they are also incredibly in need of more human and financial resources. In the interviews, the researchers expressed concerns over the key uncertainties around transplantation and the preferred habitat characteristics in juvenile habitats. However, there are simply not enough people and funding to facilitate more in-depth and small-scale studies that would be beneficial to understand the mechanisms by which abalone detects suitable habitats and the specific conditions that allow for juvenile recruitment. At the same time, I was amazed at how this small mighty team of researchers is primarily the sole group of people protecting the endangered black abalone. For example, the UCSC team has a long-term monitoring program that has been ongoing for more than thirty years. There is a new protocol designed to direct the rescue and relocation of black abalone in landslide events. Scientists from Mexico work with fishing cooperatives to manage black abalone for conservation and taking.

This is a screenshot of me attending the BART meeting and these are some of the leading experts in black abalone conservation in the U.S. The meeting consisted of updates from subteams (monitoring and emergency response, restoration, experimental translocation and captive breeding, disease research, genetics, education and outreach, enforcement, and NOAA). The meeting lasted for two hours and I was able to experience how a government agency manages coordinated conservation actions!

Another interesting thing I have learned was the attractiveness of scientific fieldwork. My internship is entirely remote, and I have had some opportunities to interview experts on zoom. However, seeing the site photos of experts in black abalone habitats, I feel more inclined to engage in hands-on fieldwork and reconnect with my passion for the ocean and scuba diving. Black abalone conservation in particular has a very strong dynamic between fieldwork and management: the same people who are researching black abalone are also making important decisions about managing black abalone populations and projects. In this way, I think it will be meaningful to physically interact with black abalone while pursuing my original interest in policy management. 

One challenge that I have faced was balancing my internship responsibilities with other school work. As my internship required a lot of reading, I felt very overwhelmed by my workload. My internship aims to reference 10 sources for each topic (transplantation and juvenile recruitment habitat), conduct 9-12 expert interviews and transcriptions, and finally, produce two white papers synthesizing all the information I have collected. In many ways, I feel that I have underestimated the intensity of my internship work. To overcome this challenge, I took extra steps to stay organized and manage my time. For example, I kept a detailed record of my work progress and gave weekly updates to my Site supervisor about my accomplishments and shortcomings. The weekly goals that I set for my Site supervisor have definitely helped with keeping me accountable and reassuring my progress in completing the internship. Towards the latter of the term, I made a weekly checklist of small tasks that I can complete every day to finish everything by the end of the quarter. 

Another major challenge was conducting expert interviews. Initially, I felt very intimidated to interview researchers, some even have more than 20-30 years of experience. Related to the work pressure I mentioned before, I always felt underprepared for these interviews and had a hard time understanding some biology jargon specific to black abalone. To overcome this challenge, I did some background research of the interviewees before each session. I also scheduled a mock interview with my Site supervisor, which allowed me to practice my interview skills — how to introduce myself, ease into interview consent questions, and ask appropriate follow-up questions. I also asked for assistance from my Site supervisor about any unclear spellings or scientific explanations and was also able to further leverage the opportunity to ask experts about interesting things that other experts have brought up. 

Here are some questions for you! 

How has your internship confirmed or changed your career goals? 

Do you have any ideas for what types of internships/jobs you want to pursue in the next few years? 

How do you think researchers can advocate for endangered species conservation in small animals such as the black abalone? How can we get the public to care? 

Here are some pictures of black abalone!

Black abalone in their cryptic habitat.

The follow two photos demonstrate the effects of withering syndrome (WS) in black abalone. Symptoms are shown by a shrunken foot (lower photo). WS first appeared in the 1990s and the population has struggled to rebound.

[rachgl]

Seattle Subway Internship

Hey everybody!

This summer I am completing my internship with Seattle Subway, a grassroots organization that is advocating for better transit in Seattle. Seattle Subway has a vision map for an expansion of the link light rail system. From Westlake you could reach Edmonds, Queen Anne, Renton, and so many more high trafficked and under serviced areas. Part of my internship is creating an environmental impact statement for the Aurora Corridor or Highway 99. My time has been spent researching CO2 emissions, history of environmental changes caused by installation of infrastructure, ridership rates of buses, traffic data and many other aspects. The other aspect is community outreach. I’ve tabled at Capitol Hill pride and encountered so many people that wanted to expand the link station and get more involved in the process. 

I’ve learned so much while working with Seattle Subway, Coming from Pennsylvania, a state with abysmal public transit systems, I had no idea that transit could get even better in Seattle. I also had no idea the sheer amount of people that are in favor of making transit better. More than 70% of voters are in favor of the envisioned Seattle Transit 4, even if that means a mild increase in tax rates. I have also learned through research that environmental impact statements (EIS) are down for virtually every piece of highway, building and any other project you can think of. However these documents tend to have highly scientific jargon which can make them confusing to read. Which is why I’m writing an EIS for Seattle Subway that balances on the line between complicated and digestible. 

One of the main challenges I am facing outside of time management, is the fear of doing it wrong. I’ve never written an environmental impact statement and am worried that I don't have the expertise, am not delving deep enough into specific neighborhoods, or that I don’t have the right tone to do this properly. However with my fellow intern I feel that we will be able to deliver a solid EIS and my faculty and site advisors are excellent resources. 

Below is a picture of me tabling at the beginning of Capitol Hill pride. I met so many different parts of our community that day and learned so much about what can be changed for the better in seattle. 

Thanks for reading and check out Seattle Subway on twitter or at their website https://www.seattlesubway.org

My question for you is what area of seattle do you think would benefit most from a light rail system? Should that be our main focus in making transit more accessible?

[skylarjacobson-blog1]

This summer I have been working with the Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery during their science summer camps. There are 3 different weeks with kids of age range 3-10, so it has been interesting to see how each group learns and reacts to information different than the others. That leads to one of my challenges, which was figuring out how to keep the kids focused. They have so much enthusiasm to learn, but it’s also hard to keep them focused enough to absorb the information. For example, if we had a guest speaker and the campers would be excited and then 10 minutes later start losing interest. Each camper is different, but it was helpful to remind them of why it’s important to know the information and how to be respectful. Has anyone found useful tactics to keep kids focused during activities? Here’s a picture of when the campers were focused while listening and observing nature! #ENVIR491

[felixreinhold]

Umvoto Africa, Sustainable Aquifer Recharge.

Hello ENVIR491 classmates! Over the past six weeks I have been home in South Africa carrying out my capstone internship with the team at Umvoto Africa. Umvoto was established in 1992 by Rowena Hay as a water resource development and management consultancy and plays a key role in the successful exploration, resource estimation and environmentally sustainable implementation of several key groundwater supply schemes in and around South Africa. Umvoto is internationally recognized for having the largest groundwater specialty team in Southern Africa, while also operating within the fields of water resource management, disaster risk reduction, geo-risk assessment and prevention, geoinformatics and remote sensing.

One of the major projects for Umvoto is to map and restore the Cape Flats Aquifer underlying the City of Cape Town. This means routinely monitoring about 60 wells to test water quality, rate and direction of flow and underlying geology. Some of these wells are situated in severely poor and underdeveloped neighborhoods where crime and gangsterism is very high. We are therefore required to travel with an armed security guard to wach our backs while we are doing our measurements and often sites will be seen as unfit/unsafe to work at and the data may not be collected.

I am working under one of the many projects Umvoto is running, titled Cape Town Water Resilience. This is a project appointed by the City of Cape Town to undertake emergency groundwater development of the cape flats aquifer, which underlies the majority of cape town, following the cape town water crisis in 2017/2018. The project is based on the Cape Flats Aquifer Management Strategy and entails both emergency supply and long-term resilience through Managed Aquifer Recharge, which aims to improve aquifer and ecosystem functioning while maximizing storage and yield.

While my man research is on sustainable aquifer recharge, the work for the company have me focusing on SGD in the Cape Flats; this project has me researching Submerged Aquifer Recharge for the Cape Flats to the ocean, the process where groundwater is exchanged between land and sea. Did you know that SGD is more important that rivers are in transport of nutrients and mineral into the ocean? How do you think this can effect ocean ecosystems when the aquifer itself is polluted?

[xmuhistory]

@davidedryburgh: Prof. Qinhua Fang of Xiamen University wrote an astounding piece on #marinespatialplanning in China. A really in depth analysis of impact assessements on key species in the area! #ENVIR491

from http://twitter.com/davidedryburgh via IFTTT