Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I really believe that research and education should be completely interlinked and go together.
My work has always been interested in or focused on the wetland ecosystem component and getting
students involved right from the get-go has always been a real priority for me.
Jill Bubier: Our first speaker is Rose Smith, who I had the pleasure of working with for
the last two years in a Boreal Peatland in Canada.
Rose: I used an infrared gas analyzer to measure CO2 exchange from individual leaves.
I put the leaf in a chamber and then I would have the light at a saturating level
and I would change the CO2 levels and see how photosynthesis responded to that.
Rose: Jill would like me to publish my data because we all think that it's original and
it could really contribute, so I've been just focusing on my thesis this year and
then once I graduate we'll stay in contact and I'll continue to write and rewrite
the thesis and turn it into a publishable paper.
Jill: Five years ago I received a grant from the National Science Foundation,
but actually my work with students started earlier than that.
I first started doing this project with students under NASA funding and
most people think of NASA as this space agency and only doing work on other planets,
but they have whole division in NASA called the Mission to Planet Earth.
So NASA is interested in anything that is in the earth's atmosphere that's relevent
to climate and any processes on earth that affect the atmosphere.
More recently I've gotten funding from the National Science Foundation.
Basically, I've been interested in looking at how climate change might be affecting
northern ecosystems and we know-- this isn't based just on my work,
this is a lot of other scientists doing work on this--
that the northern hemisphere is more sensitive to global climate change,
that already we have noticed bigger increases in temperature, bigger responses in ecosystems.
Jill, in class: Our next speaker is Gennie Noyce.
I've also had the pleasure of working with Gennie for the last two years,
she has been doing research on a small peatland--and a different type
of peatland--she'll tell you about in South Eastern New Hampshire.
Genevieve Noyce: So what I was looking at for
my thesis project is how sedges affect methane emission from a temperate fen.
So Rose already talked about what peatlands are.
A fen is another type of peatland.
It looks slightly different. You can see from this picture,
it's a lot more shrubby and has a lot more vascular plants.
So a lot more shrubs and a lot more grassy plants.
So any carbon that is stored in the soil is carbon that is not being in the atmosphere
or being released into the atmosphere and therefore is not contributing
to the greenhouse effect and therefore climate change or global warming.
However, peatlands are the most important single source of atmospheric methane
because they are these water-logged environments, and methane is a
greenhouse gas that has 12-20 times the global warming potential of CO2.
Jill: For me, combining education and research and being outdoors working with students and
being able to mentor new scientists up and coming--
they're the future of our planet let's face it, not my generation--
it's definitely the most rewarding part of my job.
I wouldn't be happy if I was just doing research without students.