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Smith students and professors conducting research in the coastal waters of the Bahamas and Belize and closer to home in the Mill River watershed in Massachusetts now have more in common than a shared concern for the earth's ecosystems. For the next three years, they will jointly participate in a unique interdisciplinary ecosystems management project that will bring together scientists, policymakers and environmental groups from all over the world. With a $225,000 grant from the Charles E. Culpeper Foundation, Smith professors Paulette Peckol and H. Allen Curran and six students will this summer begin hands-on research in the tropical reef systems in the Bahamas and Belize. They will work side by side with environmental scientists, conservation organizations and policymakers in each country and will ultimately use their research data as the basis of a management plan for the preservation of threatened coral reef systems. A corresponding project designed to collect long-term information about the 30,000-acre Mill River watershed in western Massachusetts, financed by a $115,000 grant from The Krusos Foundation, is already under way through Smith's environmental science program. In collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, interdisciplinary teams of Smith College and other Five College faculty and students are studying the endangered dwarf wedge mussel and the impact of human activity in the watershed's ecosystem. The data collected will eventually be used to make public policy decisions to protect and preserve this natural ecosystem. Thomas Litwin, director of Smith's environmental science program and principal investigator for the Mill River project, says the financial support given to the two studies, one local and the other tropical, will enable Smith to continue to build its environmental science program, established in 1996, into one that is nationally recognized. Its continuing growth was listed as a priority goal in the college's recent self-study. "The beauty of this ecosystems management project is that we have a tropical system and a temperate system to investigate. We'll be testing both with the same models and the same types of questions. We'll be putting the Mill River and Caribbean projects together and testing the effectiveness of the ecosystem management model we've developed, while contributing to and helping policymakers who wish to implement change," says Litwin. "The Culpeper grant becomes a vehicle for environmental problem-solving in collaboration with local, state, national and international environmental agencies." The Culpeper grant also will fund the development of a laboratory at Smith for spatial analysis, and support campus visits by international scientists who will work with Smith teams on data analysis and policy development. In 2001, Smith will host a "corporate/agency environmental roundtable event." It will gather Smith faculty and students, along with Five College environmental educators, U.S. and international environmental scientists, and corporate and government agency representatives to consider coral reef and temperate management and protection and policy-making issues. Members of the science faculty say that the project is also unique in its support of student-faculty research teams. "The idea of students from different disciplines participating in this summer science research is at the center of this project," notes Curran, a Smith geology professor. During each of the next three summers, the teams will do two or three weeks of fieldwork investigations before returning to campus for six to eight weeks of laboratory work. "It's a great opportunity for all of us, and for students especially, to be able to conduct this type of fieldwork," says Professor Peckol of the biological sciences department. "Our proposal for this project was designed to integrate our efforts with a global effort focusing on the environmental and economic issues facing these tropical ecosystems. Smith is already a leader in providing undergraduates with opportunities for research. With these opportunities, we are motivating students, making them our partners in science and training them for careers in the environmental sciences." Many are hoping this project will encourage more interest in the environmental science program at Smith. In supporting the tropical study, says Litwin, Culpeper has invested "in the approach Smith is taking towards our environmental education, one which emphasizes problem-solving on a global scale. Environmental science reflects a unifying concept: that the global human population as it continues to grow still relies on earth's fragile, life-sustaining natural systems. The value of technology is lost if we insist on repeatedly making the same mistakes. "Environmental science gives us an interdisciplinary approach to assessing the impact we are having on earth's system," Litwin adds. "As a species we have to see ourselves as part of our ecosystems and start understanding how to maintain the natural systems that support our very existence. We really don't have a choice. It's the only biosphere we have." |
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