Several events in recent months gave students from several colleges and a high school the opportunity to contribute to the understanding of acid mine drainage and other water quality issues in and around the Slippery Rock Creek Watershed in Butler County.

At the November Slippery Rock Watershed Coalition meeting, Westminster College students from Dr. Helen Boylan's Advanced Chemistry course presented their findings on the effectiveness of the De Sale Phase 2 passive treatment system as part of an on-going servie learning project.

The project is a partnership among Westminster College, Jennings Environmental Education Center and Stream Restoration, Inc. to provide the students with a hands-on experience utilizing the skills they have gained in a practical application while learning about abandoned mine drainage and at the same time provide the SRWC with valuable water quality data for selected passive systems.

The students had previously collected water samples from each of the passive system's components, upstream and downstream of the passive system, as well as a few sludge samples from different parts of the system.

The students then took the samples back to Westminister College to perform a variety of laboratory analyses.

At the meeting, the students took turns presenting various aspects of the data to the SRWC. The students did an excellent job explaining their methodology and presenting their data.

As usual, this monthly meeting of the SRWC is the most exciting of the year! The SRWC was very appreciated of the student effort and provided positive feedback. As the presentations seem to get better every year, we can only imagine what next year will bring.

More than 60 students and other participants took part in the December 3 Student Symposium on the Environment at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa organized by Dr. Helen Boylan at Westminster and many other partners.

Students from Westminister, Slippery Rock University, Youngstown State University, Allegheny College and St. Joseph High School participated.

Here is a sampling of the projects presented at the Symposium--

-- Slippery Rock University Ecology Class: Abundance and Composition of Understory Plants Inside and Outside of a Deer Exclosure At Jennings Environmental Education Center;

-- Nicholas Divjak, Westminister College: Temporal Dynamics of Plankton Populations in Relation to Silica in a Freshwater Beaver Pond;

-- Katie Williams & Cassidy Wozniak, Westminister College: Water Source at Cascade Park;

-- Slippery Rock University Ecology Class: Effectiveness of the Passive Treatment System for Acide Mine Drainage at Jennings Environmental Education center;

-- Chelsea Mastilak, DiAndra DiBacco, Sara Ergen, Sammi DiNardo, Stephanie Finnegan and Sean Schachner, Westminster College: Keeping Cascade Environmentally Healthy;

-- Travis Battiest, Youngstown State University: Sulfide Remediation through the Use of Absorbents;

-- Frances Anne Tosto, St. Joseph High School: Effectiveness of Passive Treatment Systems in Reclaiming Streams Affected by Abandoned Mine Drainage;

-- Shari Mastalski and Beth Rihn, Slippery Rock Coalition: Design: Holistic, Ecological, Sustainable; and

-- Chris Bonessi, Justin Gaudi and Alex Haas, Allegheny College: Achieving Environmental Education Through Community Development.

Following the post session, Vice President and Dean of Academic Affairs for Westminister College Jess Mann provided a welcome and introduction to the event. Shari Mastalski then present her original spoken word/dance piece entitled, "Playing in the Dirt," before the orgal presentations began.

The presentations included:

-- Lori Katrencik and Nathan Barefoot, Westminister College: Analysis of DeSale Phase II: A Service Learning Project on Passive Treatment Systems;

-- Lee Layton, Slippery Rock University: Effects of Passive Treatment for Acide Mine Drainage on Epilithic Community Productivity in Streams;

-- Linda Farnham, Westminister College: Internship at AGX, Inc. as an Industrial Hygienist/ Environmental Specialist;

-- Bryan Page, Slippery Rock University: A Recent Graduate's Perspective on the Value of His Internship for Placement in the Job Market;

-- Fred Romeo, Cassie Treshok and Michael Gess, Westminister College: Westminster College Greenhouse Gas Inventory;

-- Steven Sankey, Westminister College: Nature as Viewed by the Great Chain of Being, Sait Francis, The Wanapum and Humanism and How We Must Reform Our Perception of Nature to Save the Planet; and

-- Shari Mastalski and Beth Rihn, Slippery Rock University: Bioregenerative Architecture: Building a Demonstration Straw Bale Unit.