SER 2007 is Underway

All of the 2007 SER courses have begun meeting and projects are shaping up. Our programs this summer are in Las Vegas, Carlsbad and Grants and each of our cooperating teachers has interesting research planned.

Las Vegas, our longest running program, will continue collecting data for their long-term study of the Gallinas watershed near Las Vegas, NM. Their research will be assisted by Dr. Peter Skelton of NMSU.

This will be our third year in the Carlsbad area and students will be involved in the study of micro-climate and its effects on biodiversity. As part of their project, students will place sensors that will record soil temperature every two minutes, 24 hours a day for a year. This information will be sent to ecology researcher Dr. Jason Fridley who is in the Biology Department at Syracuse University, Syracuse NY. We are pleased that our collaboration could lead to better understanding of climate change.

This is the first year we have offered a program through Grants High School. Students from grants will complete a biotic survey of two sites, one on Mt. Taylor and the other near Blue Water Lake in the Zuni Mountains. Students will survey both aquatic and terrestrial macro-invertebrates. They will also do a water quality transect of the state between the Zuni Mountains near Grants and the Pecos River near Carlsbad.

Results of all research projects will be presented at a student congress, which is modeled on a professional scientific meeting and held at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science on July 21st, 2007. Summer participants will be joined by the participants in our Spring collaboration with the Working Classroom, an after-school arts program located in downtown Albuquerque. Working Classroom students spent nine weeks studying the Bosque eco-system and interpreting their understanding through visual art. The students' pieces will be on display in the museum during the weekend of Final Congress.