Pathways of Pollution, Final Reflection Blog

Barrett Saint-Amour

As both a junior and an environmental science major attending UNE, it has always been somewhat peculiar that throughout many of the courses I have taken that taken that deal with environmental conservation and eliminating waste, we oftentimes discuss the harmful impacts of waste, but never seem to actually discuss how to potentially reduce waste. I didn’t know that when I signed up for ENV398, I would finally be able to scratch that itch that had been present for years, and both learn and enjoy myself in the entire process. I was pleasantly surprised when we were able to go above and beyond just discussing various methods in class, and were able to actually get out in the field and make a difference by cleaning up and recording various articles of litters when we visited the Wells Reserve. For the first time throughout my environmental education at UNE, I finally felt like I was actually making a positive difference. I like to think of myself more as a visual and hands-on learner, so I felt that collecting trash at the sites we visited was right up my alley.

Another one of the most significant aspects of ENV398 that I enjoyed was how we were taught to think outside of the box in regards to pollution and how it accumulates. In particular, before we talked about and undertook the RavenLite Soundscape Assignment, I had never previously heard about sound pollution ever being an issue, which opened my eyes to this new threat. Learning how to use the software RavenLite was also a great skill to learn as well as a great intro to being able to use sound playback software, which will no doubt help down the road as a technical skill I can return to. In addition, although having to listen to snapping shrimp chatter for hours on end got tiresome, it felt like a truly special experience whenever an organism such a whale would unexpectedly show up on the program spectrograms.

I also enjoyed bring able to craft sculptures out of the trash we collected near the end of the semester. I had not previously visited the Maker’s Space before, so being able to drill holes and attach limbs to Freddy the Debris Dude was a lot of fun, as well as expressive. I hope that most of our projects find long-term homes where they are visible to other students as reminders of the negative impacts of their careless actions.

To summarize this semester in ENV398, this class has opened my eyes to not only the impacts of trash and litter upon the environment, but as well in regards to types of pollution such as sound, and additionally what can be done to stop humans from continuing to harm nature. Although I had a few rough spots, I sincerely enjoyed partaking in this class, and would wholly recommend any environmental student or anyone interested in the dynamics of pollution that’s on the fence to take the leap of faith and sign up for this class.

Below are some images taken at the Wells Reserve.

ENV 398 Pathways of Pollution has been one of my favorite classes that I've taken at UNE so far. I've realized how important it is to be educated about issues, environmental or not, in order to truly make a difference. The course was very dynamic and hands on and that's not something that every course here at UNE offers. I had so much fun in our tight-knit class and Dr. H really did the course justice. It is a shame that Dr. H will not be with us next year, I think the environmental department could really benefit from an expert in marine debris. It's a pertinent issue that is not talked about as much as it should be. After taking the course, I think I speak for the class when I say that I feel a moral responsibility to make others around me aware of marine debris and its related consequences. One of the most important things I've learned from this class is that we can all make a difference. Whether its skipping the straw or helping out at a local beach cleanup, by playing our part we can help mitigate environmental issues on a global scale.

ENV 398: Pathways of Pollution

By: Heather Baron

As a senior in college I have taken my fair share of courses in everything from climate change to indigenous peoples to permaculture. But never have I had a class that has brought in several different programs and is so applicable to the real world. In all of my other classes I have used power point and excel endlessly, but it is very rare that I learn a new program. In this course I was introduced to the Marine Debris Tracker App, the Fulcrum App, Ravenlite, Camtasia and ArcGIS Story Maps. These programs made the class exciting but also applicable to my future in environmental studies.

This class focused mostly on marine debris and noise pollution and the effects it can have on both humans and wildlife. Most of my other courses we focused on different types of pollution, but very rarely did we go into anything regarding the marine environment. This may have been because I did not get the opportunity to take any classes in the marine department but being and environmental studies major I would have expected to get a little taste of all types of pollution. Before this course I had little to no knowledge of nose pollution, the most experience I had was reading a Facebook article that mentioned the effect boats can have on whales, and that was it.

I got the opportunity in this course to take a deeper dive into noise pollution and what it really is. The entire class had a complicated relationship with the Ravenlite program, as it was a bit hard to work with, but it did open a door to an entirely new world. For my final data exploration project, I decided to brave the Ravenlite program again to analyze the sounds of UNE’s dumpster being emptied. This gave me the opportunity to compare the sounds of whales, birds, and anthropogenic noises. I learned a lot about how to read a spectrogram and how to understand all the information that Ravenlite was giving us. It was one of the favorite parts of the class, looking deeper into noise pollution. Throughout the course I had the opportunity to look at sound data from Wells Reserve, Islands in the Carribean and on the UNE Campus. I find myself aware of all the noises around me and constantly thinking about how that is affecting not only myself, but everything in the natural world.

The marine debris portion of this class really made a difference, not just in our awareness of our trash, but to the UNE community as well. During the spring semester the class did a total of eight beach clean ups, including our own Freddy beach and at Wells National Reserve beach. We picked up everything from tires, to nips of fireball, plastic fragments, shoes and everything in between. By learning about marine debris and then actually going out and picking it up it gave us all a closer and more intimate perspective of how people are impacting the planet. During our beach clean ups, we used the Marine Debris Tracker App and the Fulcrum App which allowed us to track where each piece of debris was, along with the coordinates. We then made all of our debris into sculptures that were presented to the entire school. It is important for people to be able to see just how much trash is on our beaches and to understand the consequences of leaving your trash on the beach. This class was one of the highlights of my senior year because I gained skills and worked in programs that will both help me in the future but also helped the community around me.

Pictures from left to right: Two UNE students enjoying the glorifying reality of picking up trash, a UNE student placing the sound equiptment that recorded sounds at Wells Reserve, and one of the final products of the marine debris that ENV 398 created. Photo credit: Heather Heenehan

Pathways of Pollution: My Reflection

By Hannah Buckley

Taking the class Pathways of Pollution was a great way to introduce me to topics that I had not been exposed to in previous classes while learning new techniques and even participating in data-generating pollution clean-ups. This was also my first course taken with a focus on marine issues (most of my studies have been focused on terrestrial science) and I’m glad I fit it into my schedule before I graduate! I learned that marine debris comes in all forms and sizes, from derelict fishing gear to tiny microplastics and marine pollution can be both invisible and visible.

One of the topics that I learned the most about was noise pollution. I had never thought of the idea that traffic noises could prevent birds from mating and that boat engines could prevent whales from communicating. Noise pollution is so different and hard for people to conceptualize because we can only hear it, but not see it. For our class, this changed when we did the noise pollution assignments with the software called RavenLite from the Cornell Ornithology Lab (RavenLite is available at this link: https://store.birds.cornell.edu/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=RAVENLITE ). We used RavenLite to listen to recorded segments from terrestrial and marine locations around the world. Raven allowed the once invisible noise pollution to become visible on our computer screens as we could see by various colors and intensities how loud a noise actually was and how much space that noise took up in the environment it was made in. This was a difficult project that challenged us to learn how to use a completely unfamiliar software, but it taught us so much about the research process and how damaging noise pollution can be for wildlife.

My favorite topic that we covered in class was marine debris. My favorite part about it was that we not only learned in the classroom, but we went out onto our beaches to actually clean them up. A lot of the debris that is found in marine environments originated on land, so it is important to also examine how we live our lives on land and what we can do to reduce our waste. One way we did this was by bringing our own metal spoons and ceramic bowls to eat ice cream at our final presentation!

During our beach cleanups, our class used the app Marine Debris Tracker (Clean Swell is another useful app that can be used to track marine debris) to record every piece of trash that we picked up every time we did a beach cleanup. To clean UNE’s on-campus beach, Freddy Beach, we paired up and visited the beach 6 times total. To clean up the beach at the Well’s Reserve, our class visited twice: once in February and once in April. We used the Marine Debris Tracker app in order to log the GPS location of every item found as well as collect a running total of items, visually see where the debris was most commonly found, and to contribute information to a larger data set of marine debris worldwide. Have you ever noticed the amount of plastic and other debris that washes on shore at your local beach? If so, maybe you might want to download the app and collect valuable data as a citizen scientist while cleaning up the environment! Doing so is a great way to see how much you have actually accomplished during a cleanup.

All of the marine debris that our class collected at UNE was kept until one of our last class meetings where we went to UNE’s Makerspace and created art sculptures completely out of the trash we collected. This was my favorite class. In total, our class made a jellyfish, a flounder made out of alcohol nips, a person, and a turtle! We displayed our artwork at an open house on campus and many people who stopped at our display had similar reactions: that our art was cool, but incredibly depressing. They’re not wrong! We hoped that creating such a display would evoke in visitors the desire to use less plastics, recycle, and properly dispose of their own waste. It truly is up to us to address the various pathways of pollution, one of which is ourselves.

Our Marine Debris Sculptures: (from left to right) Jellyfish, human, turtle, and flounder. All photos courtesy of Dr. Heather Heenehan.

A Reflection on ENV 398: Pathways of Pollution

By Kyle Beem

I've known what pollution is since a kid, seeing it litter the streets of my hometown and seeing it thrown from cars in front of me. Growing up, I became more and more aware of the ever growing environmental problems were are facing today as a group of young adults. We are staring climate change in the face, needing to figure solutions for the problem before it unravels before our very eyes. Our class became dedicated to the solutions to pollutions. We spent time cleaning up the beach on our campus, the beach at Wells Reserve and spreading general awareness of marine pollution to the University of New England's Biddeford campus.

We got to collaborate with some awesome guests. I found it extremely helpful and beneficial to hear their stories and get information on what they've done in their professional careers. I did not really understand there could be a profession in pollution, but there are so many that can really prove to be successful and important in our future. My favorite trips were the ones where we got to go to the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve and get to do beach cleanups. The beach was so nice and open, walking it didn't seem like a chore at all. Along with picking up trash, I was able to talk to classmates and engage in in-depth conversations about daily life and pollution and how important it is to understand the small but powerful message marine debris exclaims but is not often heard. Marine debris in our oceans have been a major but silent problem, I did not grasp the concept of micro and macro-plastics in our ocean until this semester.

Using the Marine Debris Tracker app was something I was nervous about at first but then became second-hand nature when cleaning up beaches. It's so simple to use and so useful to counting just how much trash we pick up on our beaches. It's hard to believe we found over one-thousand pieces of debris on our small beach on campus. It really says something about the current state of our oceans and just awareness of pollution on our campus.

Another aspect of the class I had no idea really impacted the environment around us was noise. Noise pollution is a huge problem that is swept under the rug. Up to taking this class, I did not think of noise pollution as a big problem but after our soundscape assignment and actually hearing birds stop chirping and no sounds after a train whistle or people talking, it raised my attention. Cars going off in the distance stopped any natural sounds near the recording device, people talking loudly stopped the birds from chirping, everything seemed to stop.

This class really showed me the importance in understanding how pollution gets from point A to point B. Ending up in our oceans, on our beaches, in our waterways, etc. I've really come to understand that pollution and plastic is going to plague our society for thousands of years to come unless we start a massive change that can end this. It would be a massive challenge to get there, but one day, hopefully we can see the change happen. I've learned new ways to lessen my plastic use, protect wildlife, cleanup beaches efficiently, and just learned about changing the environment we have come to live in today.

Pathways of Pollution: A Reflection

By Quinn Lawrence

Coming into this class I knew nothing about pollution, other than that it was a problem. I assumed we would focus mostly on marine pollution and how it affected marine life. Most of the class was dedicated to marine debris, and our marine debris collection was really powerful. We wound up collecting about 1300 pieces of marine debris over the course of six weeks, and made sculptures to put around campus to raise awareness about marine debris. Using the Marine Debris tracker app was a great tool for our cleanups, as we were able to track every piece of debris that we picked up as a class. We had four sculptures (featured from left to right): Debbie the Debris Jellyfish, Shelly the Marine Debris Turtle, Fireball Flounder (made entirely from fireball nips), and Freddie the Debris Dude.

Having Demi and Theresa from NOAA and the Maine Coastal Program come and talk to class was a really amazing experience. Both women gave great insight into the world of marine debris cleanup and policy. Learning the truth about derelict fishing gear from Demi was really important and should become common knowledge. Fishing gear left on beaches cannot be disposed of by good hearted samaritans because technically it is private property. Even if the fishing gear is smashed to pieces or unrecognizable, it cannot be picked up unless the proper official is there and it is destroyed after. Working with Demi and Theresa was also great because they were excellent examples of women working in a professional environment about issues that really matter.

A lot of what we did in class related to current movements to cleanup pollution. Phasing out plastic straws and moving towards eco friendly straws or glass/metal straws is a big movement right now, and is an important issue. There is one company making a foldable metal straw that fits in a case small enough to put on a keychain, so you can always bring a reusable straw with you. (more information can be found here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/908228738/finalstraw-the-worlds-first-collapsible-reusable-s)

Another super important part of this class, while it drove most people insane, was the soundscape assignment. Raven Lite may be the most temperamental software that I have ever had to use, but the purpose for using it was important. We used Raven Lite to look at noise pollution at the Wells Reserve. The soundscape assignment had one major takeaway: people are loud. All vehicles disturb the natural sounds of the forest, including cars, airplanes, and lawnmowers. Even just talking disturbs the forest, although talking isn’t the main problem.

The soundscape assignment was important not just for us, but also for the wonderful staff at the Wells Reserve. They were gifted the technology to capture and track this pollution, and this assignment was a really great way to utilize the sound files that they were collecting. In my assignment, I found that roughly 50% of all noise over the course of three days was anthropogenic, with the loudest sounds coming from planes and trains.

This class is important to take because people don’t understand the way that they affect and change the natural environment, even if they don’t intend to. Marine debris found on the beach isn’t just from people who litter; it comes from trashed dumped into the ocean from all over the country and the world. Animals get trapped in the pollution, or die from ingesting too much of it. Noise pollution is also a huge impact. I know that when I travel, I don’t think of how the sound of the plane is going to affect environments thousands of feet below me. People need to be made aware of the indirect ways that they are harming the environment, and why it is so important that we cut down on our pollution for all life on Earth. People say that one little thing won't make a difference, but that's not always the case. Just switching straws, going to the beach to pick up debris once or twice a month, and being aware of how loud your car/music is can make a big difference.

Reflecting on ENV398

Emily Murad

Pathways of pollution was a perfect class to take during my last semester here at UNE because it is unlike any other classes I have taken before. I signed up for the class because I was intrigued about the idea of service learning and had heard that there was going to be a marine focus. I was excited about both of these aspects of the class from the get go and was glad to find that they were both key themes of the class all the way through. This was really the first time I got to focus on marine issue in a class and I found it very interesting especially considering I originally choose to come to UNE to study marine science but ended up changing my major to environmental studies before freshman year even started. I was also excited about the idea of service learned because I have been lucky enough to get out in the community through various classes, internships, and volunteer experiences and these have been some of my most enjoyable and rewarding times at UNE. I really appreciated the fact that this class allowed me to give back to our own small community here at UNE by cleaning up Freddy beach and sharing our marine debris sculptures with our peers; while also allowing me to give back to the wider community by cleaning up the beach at the wells reserve and sharing this blog with the world!

My favorite part of the class was definitely the beach clean ups. As a class we completed 8 beach clean ups over the semester, 2 at Wells beach and 6 at Freddy beach and cleaned up thousands of pieces of debris. I really appreciated being able to get outside and have fun with by peers spending class time at the beach regardless of the cold weather and fact that we were picking up trash. What made the beach clean ups even better was being able to finish off with a fun creative project. We made a jelly fish out of ropes, straws, balls, and a large piece of styrofoam named Debbie the debris jelly, a fish out of alcohol nips named fireball flounder, a person from wood and bits of plastic named Freddy, and a turtle out of wood, styrofoam, and bottle caps. I also really enjoyed making a sort report to share some of the data were collected. Again this was a fun creative outlet and was unlike anything I have been able to do in a class before.

One of the biggest things I will take away from my time in this class is the fact that while pollution is a huge problem, it is also a huge opportunity. It is an opportunity for collaboration, experimentation, and creativity. It has been depressing to see the amount of pollution that ends up on the beaches we love and to learn about the suffering of so many species who are effected by all kinds of pollution. However, it has also been inspiring to meet so many various people working to put an end to pollution and to learn about all the amazing things they are doing. I would encourage everyone to do one small thing every day like drinking from reusable straw or picking up a piece of trash you see one the ground to bring this inspiration to life.

In addition to setting water quality standards, the CWA establishes TMDLs (Total Maximum Daily Loads) and provides permits to some polluters via the NPDES program (National Pollution Discharge Elimination System). Together, these actions actually allow for some extent of pollution into freshwater sources to occur. However, these allowances are monitored and controlled in order to minimize pollutant inputs, while simultaneously allowing leniency for industry to continue with daily operations, that can’t necessarily avoid pollution altogether.

One of the most intriguing parts in the presentation was when our class was shown a video titled, “The Crying Indian,” which was a commercial that aired on television in 1971. This video depicts an Indian paddling in a canoe in his beautiful, pristine homeland, who then makes his way down a river and essentially time travels into the industrialized world that we still exist within today. It then goes on to show the Indian paddling through polluted waters filled with plastic and other trash, while he is surrounded by smog from output of the factories. As the Indian reaches the beach he sees that it is littered with trash everywhere, and when he makes his way to the edge of a nearby highway a bag of garbage is thrown out of a car window and it lands right at his feet. A single tear runs down his cheek and the narrator stresses, “People start pollution, people can stop it.”

As this commercial was very influential to the creation of the CWA, and in promoting an environmental movement to reduce pollution, why do you think this commercial was so successful in motivating people to take action? Do you think that some form of media message could ever have a similar effect on today’s current pollution problems? If not, why?

After the presentation the class utilized the remainder of the time to work on our data explorations projects. My group is currently working on a StoryMap that provides data on the top types of marine debris that are found on the coasts of several countries (US, Spain, Greece), and also provides information on plastic bans that may or may not exist within each of the chosen countries. The goal of our project is principally to determine if there are any correlations between policies/bans and marine debris type/abundance. Hopefully this will help us to understand what actions have been most successful in reducing marine debris.

From the combination of this presentation and the work we have been doing on our data exploration projects, it is evident that clean water sources (both fresh and marine) are very important to maintain for the health and safety of the inhabiting organisms and humans alike. Now that you have learned a little bit about the Clean Water Act, can you think of anything that you can do to reduce pollution into bodies of water?

Below are several useful links to websites that contain more detailed information regarding the Clean Water Act:

https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act

https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/clean-water-act-cwa-and-federal-facilities

Blog Post for the Week of April 19th

By Rose Karis

Remember all of that marine debris from Freddy Beach that was collected throughout the semester? Well, we wanted to do more than just weigh and sort it. We wanted to do something with it that would make people reflect and really start to think about the waste they produce and how they dispose of it. To do this, we decided that we would need to create a visual display that would catch the attention of people walking by. After coming up with some ideas about things we could create with our debris, we headed to UNE’s makerspace for a little bit of help from Mike Etsy.

The class divided into groups to tackle this quest and worked diligently to get the job done. By the end of the class period, four pieces were created- Debbie the Debris Jellyfish, Freddy the Debris Dude, Fireball Flounder, and Shelly the Sad Sea Turtle. Freddy needed some additional structural pieces to allow him to stand up on his own, but the rest of the sculptures were entirely composed of marine debrise, zip ties and hot glue.

With these pieces, we hope to have a major impact on the students, faculty and staff at UNE. It is easy to see pictures of trash that was picked up in places around the world and completely disconnect yourself from it, but it is completely different when you get to see it in person and know that it was picked up from an area not too far away from where you are standing. We hope that it will make people reflect on their own actions and think about how any of the items that we found on the beach could have come from them. Ironically enough, one of the gloves that is serving as Freddy’s hands actually belongs to Dr. Heenehan herself. She accidentally dropped it on the beach one day after doing a cleanup and it was picked up the following week as debris. This just goes to show that everyone, no matter how careful you are, has the potential to contribute to this problem. It is important to not distance yourself from the issue or convince yourself that there is no possible way that any of that debris could be yours, because there is a chance that it could be.

In order to reach the UNE community with our message of mindfulness when it comes to trash and litter, we will hopefully be placing our sculptures in visible, high-traffic areas on campus such as the Commons, the Campus Center or the Marine Science Center. The more people that see them and are able to find out the story of why they were created, the better. We also don’t want people left with a feeling of hopelessness as a result of this project. It is important for people to know that this type of pollution is entirely avoidable if people take the proper precautions to consume less and also properly dispose of the waste that they do produce.

Here are some helpful links that provide information about how you can reduce your potential to contribute to the problem of marine debris-

http://thankyouocean.org/threats/marine-debris/

https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/discover-issue/solutions

So now I encourage whoever is reading this to take some action! Whether it be teaching a friend about the issue of marine debris, a commitment to stop using straws, or doing your own beach cleanup, every single person is capable of making a difference in this world and ensuring that the planet we live on is a healthy one.

Blog Post for the Week of April 12th

By Kyle Beem

For class on April 12th, 2018, the entirety of us headed to Wells Reserve for our second beach cleanup and SEANET survey. During the cleanup, we found over 200 items of debris ranging from small pieces of styrofoam to a large rubber tire that Liam graciously carried for almost the whole duration of our clean up (see photo below). Joining us on this trip was Sue Bickford, the Stewardship Coordinator for the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve. She was a major help during our clean up and we appreciate her taking the time to come and join us on our trip!

The major items we found during our clean up at the beach in Wells were cans, plastic pieces, styrofoam, rope, derelict fishing gear, etc. All of these are avoidable pieces of debris that we can keep off the beach with simply not throwing our trash on the ground after we're done with it. At one point during our clean up, there was a small area up off the shore were there was at least fifteen cans and bottles that were left/washed up after that big storm Maine got a few weeks ago.

Blog Post for the Week of April 5th

By Barrett Saint-Amour and Dr. Heenehan

During class this week, students took turns presenting their StoryMap projects throughout the full duration of class. These projects, which were an independent study conducted by each student, helped provide insight into a plethora of issues regarding many different aspects of global pollution, among which included presentations on the topics of air pollution in the White Mountains, how sunscreen affects corals, and the issues associated with the accumulation of micro-plastics.

Links to examples of these Story Maps will be coming soon!

The next day, on April 6th, students participated with Alethea Cariddi's class in a scheduled waste characterization study. Students who contributed to the study included those in ENV 240, taught by Alethea Cariddi, and students from our Pathways of Pollution class. In this waste characterization students went through, identified, and characterized the contents of a campus dumpster, recycling bins, and our own 1,500+ pieces marine debris collected on campus over the last six weeks.

Top four categories of waste from our marine debris characterization: Returnables, Recyclable Plastic, and two categories of trash. Photo Credits: Rose Karis

The contents of the dumpster were sorted into these same categories. Later in the study the contents of a recycling bin were examined as well.

The waste characterization study, in addition to accomplishing its goal of going through the contents of the dumpster, recycling bins and our marine debris, also succeeded in sorting out trash that had previously been thrown in the wrong receptacles and quantifying this as well. This is currently an issue that the UNE campus struggles with, as although providing the right receptacles for certain types of trash helps with the cause, actually educating the students to use the correct ones is more difficult.

In the last waste characterization study done in 2016 they found that nearly 40% of what was in the dumpster could have been recycled and nearly 20% could have been composted. They were also able to quantify the contamination of the recycling bins with materials that are not recyclable. Since this first study there have been many efforts to improve recycling on campus and there's even a new composting program for residential students. Hopefully, these efforts will be reflected in this year's characterization.

In addition, by participating in the waste characterization study, students were further educated as to what type of trash and recyclables could be disposed in what type of receptacle. It was very commonplace to hear students asking where they should dispose of their findings during the waste characterization study, and it was through these questions that will help them (and others) learn. Finally, by helping to complete the characterization study, administrators of the study will gain broader insight into numerous possible questions from the data, including what type of trash found was most common, which one was most incorrectly disposed of, how often did students choose to recycle, etc.

To summarize this notion, it can be stated that overall, the waste characterization study was effective in both teaching and providing experience to the students that participated regarding how to deal with waste, as well as providing a hands-on experience working with it. It was also effective in providing vital information to coordinators that will help shed some insight into how the dynamics of trash disposal and recycling function on campus.

What do we do next? Our class is going to be communicating the results of our cleanups in a few different ways one of which will be making marine debris sculptures out of some of the debris we collected to help share the message about this issue and to encourage members of the UNE community to take care of their campus beach.

Students from ENV 398 Pathways of Pollution pose their their new marine debris awareness gear, courtesy of Ms. Theresa Torrent (Photo credit: Dr. Heather Heenehan

Campus Waste Characterization and Marine Debris

By: Hannah Buckley

This week our class time was divided into two different sections. First, we were introduced to the waste characterization study that we will be doing in April by Alethea Cariddi, the Sustainability Coordinator at UNE. For this study, our class will be working with students from ENV 240, a sustainability lab taught by Alethea to try and determine how feasible it would be for UNE to get rid of the many dumpsters on campus and replace them with compactors. Compactors would allow for the waste produced to be weighed so that we could keep data on how much waste our university produces and then determine how we can reduce that in the future. To do the study, we will be going through all of the waste accumulated in the dumpster by the Champlain resident hall on campus and the recycling bins in each of the halls that use that same dumpster. There will be two days worth of waste that we will be sorting into categories like solid waste vs. recyclable material. This will give us an idea on how much material that is thrown in the dumpster as waste that could actually be recycled or composted.

In addition to sorting through the Champlain dumpster and accompanying recycling bins, our class will also get the chance to sort through all of the marine debris that we have collected on our own Freddy Beach! In class we brainstormed some ideas on what categories we could sort the pieces into and how we can educate our university about what we did, so stay tuned to see the products of our beach clean ups in a few weeks!

The second half of class was devoted to learning about NOAA's Marine Debris Program and specifically New England's marine debris program by the Northeast Regional Marine Debris Coordinator, Demi Fox. Demi reminded us that every single piece of plastic that has ever been created still exists on this earth. That is an insane amount of plastic that gets broken down into microplastics and microfibers that enter our waterways and harm wildlife and ecosystems. Even though the challenges surrounding plastic seem daunting (because they are!), there are still a lot of positive solutions to focus on! Demi just returned from the 6th International Marine Debris Conference in California where over 700 participants from 55 countries joined to discuss science and solutions to marine debris. This topic acted as a springboard for us to break into groups and come up with some local marine debris solutions based on NOAA's 2018 main action groups: consumer debris, derelict fishing gear, microplastics, and wildlife and habitat impacts. Kyle and Emily are pictured below working on our group's implementation plan on derelict fishing gear. We are developing a cooperative program to provide shore side recycling and disposal for old or damaged fishing gear in Portland and hopefully beyond!

Do you ever stop to think about what happens to the plastic straw you threw away after you finished drinking your morning iced coffee? What about the empty chip bag that you threw out on your way to class? One solution to problems regarding waste and litter on beaches is to simply reduce your use! Say no to the plastic straw next time or purchase a stainless steel straw instead. Go without the bag of chips and choose a piece of fruit that can be composted! Some solutions are as simple and easy as changing our everyday choices. What will you do to make an impact?

+1000 pieces of debris

By: Dr. Heather Heenehan

This week we hit a four digit milestone with our marine debris surveys. As of yesterday morning we have now collected more than 1000 pieces of marine debris off of the Maine coastline (1,014 to be exact).

If you visit Marine Debris Tracker App's website and click on View and Get Data you can zoom in to Maine and see all of our data points (see screenshots in an earlier update below for examples). So far, the plastic and foam fragments are topping our list.

We had plans to visit the Wells Reserve for our monthly survey today but the snowstorm didn't get our memo and classes were cancelled... So we are trying to reschedule our March survey for after everyone returns from spring break. We have two more weeks of debris surveys on campus.

Stay tuned for updated counts or you can keep track of our efforts on the Marine Debris Tracker App's website.

If you or someone you know are cleaning up a beach near you, consider being a citizen scientist and collecting data in addition to debris using the Marine Debris Tracker App, or Ocean Conservancy's app called Clean Swell.

Blog Post for Week of March 1st

Sounds of the Sea

By Emily Murad

This week in ENV398 we began by troubleshooting some difficulties we have been having with downloading our files and operating the Raven Lite software. After successfully downloading the software and the terrestrial sound files from the Wells Reserve on to all of our individual laptops, we discussed some simple tools and methods in Raven Lite. We then discussed the various drawbacks and benefits of having such a large data set to work with, established some guidelines for moving forward, and determined what specific questions we wanted to answer as a class. It will be very interesting to see what comes of our study of the natural and anthropogenic sounds of event season at the Wells reserve. At the end of our class period we walked across campus to deploy a recording device by a dumpster on UNE’s campus as part of our collaboration with Alethea Cariddi’s ENV240 class who are working on a feasibility study of removing the dumpsters on campus.

Next we moved on from terrestrial noise pollution to marine noise pollution. This part of the class consisted of some lecture from Dr.H about her research in the field of marine noise pollution and discussion of various journal articles that we read for homework. Dr. H outlined her research experience for us by giving an overview of how essential sound is to marine mammals and then focusing on a few different case studies of marine species greatly impacted by noise pollution. Animals who live deep in the ocean can’t depend on light and visuals because sunlight can only penetrate to a certain depth. Instead they depend on sound to communicate with one another, find mates or food, determine their surroundings, and mark their territories. Because of their extreme reliance on sound, these animals are greatly impacted by anthropogenic sounds such as sonar or ship propellers.

Dr.H’s research studied the soundscape of a cove in Hawaii that was very popular with tourists due to its known location as a resting area for spinner dolphins. A soundscape is all sounds present in an environment at a given time. She used automated recording devises and techniques of Passive Acoustic monitoring (PAM) to determine what sounds were most prevalent in the cove and discovered both expected and unexpected sounds. These included sonar, shipping vessels, and even the sounds of a pressure washer from a nearby aquaculture farm. Our discussion then moved on from spinner dolphins to baleen whales. These are one of the most endangered whale species in the world and their migration paths are greatly interfered with by commercial shipping vessels. Our jigsaw discussion of the various journal articles we had each read from homework taught us that it is not only mammals who are affected by noise pollution, even zooplankton who are the base of the ocean food chain can be affected by seismic surveying.

In my opinion, the problem here is larger than sound. The root of noise pollution is at the root of almost all environmental problems – it’s about a lack of respect. Respect for the earth, for other species, even for other humans. For example, if we respected spinner dolphins, we would leave them be and let them rest instead of overcrowding their habitat with pollution and people for economic gain. This is not to say that we should have no interaction with other species because it is impossible to truly appreciate something if you are not allowed to experience it, but a respectful balance needs to be struck.

An intimidating but important take away from this week’s class was the fact that we are scarred and saddened by the state of our planet. As students of environmental and marine science we know more than the average person about the current and future fate of the planet and the animals that we love. While this can be extremely overwhelming and sometimes makes us feel hopeless, it also means that we have the responsibility to share what we know with the rest of the world. We are the leaders of a growing revolution that will hopefully lead to a sustainable earth that will be a fair place for all species to exist. In the meantime were just going to keep laughing so that we don’t start crying (and maybe we'll learn to speak whale).

Blog Post for week of February 22nd

The Sounds of Maine

By Liam Sullivan

One of the issues that people may not put much thought into when dealing with the environment is sound pollution. It is always there, and can sometimes be forgotten about when considering issues in the environment. For our class we addressed this issue by learning about how an increase in sound levels can affect the animals in the environment, but also how to record the sounds in an area using recording devices. This was done at the Wells Reserve with Susan Bickford (Stewardship Coordinator at the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve) assisting with the set up and general background on the recording devices. The Wildlife Acoustics SoundMeter devices are used for getting an idea of the sounds in an area during 5-7-day deployments. The devices are programmed to record for 10 minutes at the half hour and hour marks during all periods of the day. The main reason this is being done at Wells is to study the soundscape of important habitat for wildlife, including the New England cottontail rabbit.

The other half of collecting data is, of course, analyzing that data. For this we are using the free software, Raven Lite. Since we set up our recordings that day, we used some of the pre-recorded Wells recordings and pre-loaded examples in Raven Lite to begin learning the process. This not only involves listening to the sounds being produced, but also looking at how those sounds register on the recording equipment and how Raven Lite can show you what you want to find without listening to the entire recording. This was most evident when the class was shown visualizations of sound called spectrograms. Since the point is looking for differences in the sound of the areas around the devices, this gave us examples of exactly what to look for. It turned out to be a bee that wandered close to the microphone. We saw how these differences in sound waveforms and spectrograms can be used to analyze recordings without necessarily having to listen to the whole recording. This is not to say that we won't be listening to to make sure nothing is missed, but it makes things easier when you know what parts to focus on.

As the day wound to a close we put up one of the two survey microphones, to compare how loud the area around the dumpsters at the Wells Reserve are compared to those on the school’s campus. One interesting point brought up by Sue was that the Reserve is on its off season, while the school is having its busy season and that this switches in the summer. This would make an excellent comparison between what areas are louder when and if this continues into the future. We want to see whether removing campus dumpsters would affect noise pollution since that is another aspect of having dumpsters on campus, they must be emptied (much to the dismay of the residents whose dorm windows are right next to these dumpsters). During this line of thought a question was brought up along the lines of “why are we doing this, wouldn’t it be easier to just say it will decrease noise and people will be fine with it?” The answer to this question being that aside from the feasibility survey, having a concrete reason along with supporting data to back it up will make it easier to change issues then just stating something that may or may not be true.

+400 pieces of debris later, a quick update

By: Dr. Heather Heenehan

One of the pieces of information my students said they wanted from our marine debris surveys was the position of every single piece of debris they pick up throughout the semester. They decided they wanted to be able to make a map with these data at the end of of our surveys. So we decided to use the Marine Debris Tracker App to gather those data and log our efforts to clean up Maine's beaches. As Heather describes in the post below, this week was our first week of action and with action, comes data points!

After our surveys on campus (left and middle maps below) and at the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve (far right map below) our class has picked up more than 400 marine debris items off the beaches of ME. When reporting this statistic excitedly to a colleague, they asked, "Is that good or bad?" My student Courtney replied, "Both! Bad that they're there in the first place but good that they're gone now!"

The screenshots are maps generated by the tracker app website with our data points. Zooming in on campus you can see all of the (247) pieces of debris we picked up (left map below).

And if you zoom in even farther (middle map below) you can actually see where that piece of debris was picked up and WHAT that piece of debris was (e.g. bottle caps, cigarettes, plastic bottles, etc.).

We will be visiting the Wells Reserve once a month to participate in surveys and will be collecting once a week on campus for the next six weeks. Stay tuned for updated counts on the amount of debris we log this semester or you can keep tabs on our efforts on the Marine Debris Tracker App's website.

If you or someone you know are cleaning up a beach near you, consider being a citizen scientist and contributing your data with an app like this one so your debris can be counted! Options for this include the Marine Debris Tracker App, what we are using for class, or the Ocean Conservancy's app called Clean Swell. If you don't need or want the position information I would recommend Clean Swell. Think about it, you can do something good for the environment and contribute data while you're at it!

Blog Post for the week of February 15th

The week of Action!

By: Heather Baron

Looking at past data from around the country on marine debris may seem less than interesting to the average person, but not to us! Our class has spent the past few weeks researching marine debris and the impacts it can have on marine and fowl life. After researching and getting a feel for how important these marine debris studies are, it was finally time to go out and gather data to answer some of the questions we have been longing to know the answers to! What type of debris will we find? What will be most common? Is this debris coming from the ocean or from the students of UNE? These questions and more will hopefully be answered through careful data collection and analysis.

This past week was very exciting for the students of Dr.Heenehans' Pathways of Pollution class; it was a week of action! The marine debris surveys are finally underway and went off without a hitch! Each week two students will conduct marine debris surveys on our local beach at low tide. On Tuesday the 13^th the first marine debris survey was conducted on the University of New England’s Freddy beach by Emily Murad and myself, with the help of Dr.Heenehan. To properly track our data, we used the Marine Debris Tracker App to record the exact location where each individual piece of debris was found. During this survey the three of us collected 247 items in just one hour. These items included many plastic bottles, cigarettes, foam fragments, metal cans and even a buoy! All marine debris that was collected is stored in a bin located at the entrance of the beach for our class to keep track of the specific debris that is collected each week. We will then take all the debris we collected throughout the semester and categorize and count it at the end of the year.

From Freddy to Wells…

Citizen science is an extraordinary method of involving the public in researching and collecting data in their local environments. Regular people who are interested in preserving and conserving their natural environment around them are taught the proper methods of data collection and observation methods, depending on the project. Citizen science is becoming more popular all around the world and has diverse projects that range from bird counting in New England to wildlife management projects in several countries in Africa. During this Thursday’s class, we got the opportunity to really dive into marine debris surveying. (pun intended) The entire class got to assist the Wells Reserve in their monthly Seabird Ecological Assessment Network or SEANET survey, making us all citizen scientists for the day! Our survey was lead by Lynne Benoit-Vachon who is the Volunteer and Visitor Services Coordinator at Wells Reserve. She gave us a quick run down of the beach and how we were going to move forward with the survey. She discussed the importance of our work today and how helpful it was to have more then three people surveying the entire beach. We were told to look out for any birds, dead or alive on the beach as well as marine debris. SEANET helps get a read on the health of an ecosystem based on its bird population, or the amount of deceased birds found. The sheets we had to fill out in the event we did find a bird are pictured below.

While at Wells, we found more than Lynne had originally thought we would, we found several pieces of small plastic, a few unidentifiably objects and several large pieces of rope; totaling over 100 items! As we neared the end of our survey we encountered two wings of different deceased birds. By using the form given to us by SEANET we were able to classify it better and narrow down the causes of death. By going out into the field and doing the work, seeing the debris and interacting with Lynne it puts our work and research into perspective. It is vitally important that these beach cleanups are conducted on a regular basis give the amount of trash the people produce and the amount that ends up in the ocean. Our class is ready and eager to see what the rest of the semester has in store for us!

*All pictures above were taken by Heather Baron, excluding the ones who were previously given credit.*

Blog Post for the week of February 8th

Marine Debris Survey

By Roxanne James

As you all probably have heard by now Dunkin Donuts has made the decision to switch to double-walled paper cups by 2020. By removing styrofoam cups from stores it will help keep pieces of debris out of landfills and the ocean. Dunkin Donuts is one of the many food industries to become environmentally friendly. Coca-cola, Budweiser, and McDonald's are also some of the many businesses to have environmentally friendly packaging. This transition to eco-friendly products will help reduce the amount of marine debris in our oceans and beaches.

This past week ENV 398 studied the marine debris and the amount of debris found on beaches. The class discussed the best way to survey a beach for debris. We as a group had to figure out what we wanted to achieve while doing a beach clean up every week and how.

Along with questions for the survey, the class figured out the best way to structure the survey. We as group planned on using an application called Clean swell. Clean swell is an application that allows people to track and record debris one has collected, track the total distance one collected one trash you collected, and keep a historical record of your cleanup efforts. Clean swell is an application that was made by the Ocean Conservancy. Along with clean swell, we plan to use an effective walking pattern found in our previous readings in order to find out what is ending up on Freddy Beach (UNE campus Beach). We collectively figured out we will need which included gloves, bags (both eco-friendly) and rulers.

Later in class, we had time to research debris found around Maine and globally. The sites we used were the NOAA Marine Debris Monitoring and Assessment Project and Ocean Conservancy websites for both old and newer data. They all had different ways of posting where debris was located. Ocean Conservancy posted their top ten list of debris and their most amazing finds. Some of the items on their list include foam take away containers, food wrappers, and cigarette butts. Some amazing finds include toilets, a bucket of nails, and a piano (Ocean Conservancy, 2017).

A question we posed in the class was how to keep debris out of the water. With debris such as take away containers and plastics constantly on our beaches and in our waterways there seems like no hope in sight, but with companies like Dunkin Donuts, Coca-cola, Budweiser, McDonald's and even Aroma Joes, there is hope. Let's also not forget about the thousands of volunteers that help clean beaches every day and help contribute to a reduced amount of marine debris. There is still much to do, and that is why UNE’s ENV 398 class will be having a weekly beach pick up to understand and analyze what debris is on our campus beach.

• Citations: Ocean Conservancy. International Coastal Cleanup 2017 Report. 2017.

The Albatross on Midway Atoll are dying because chicks are consuming plastic waste. Piles of trash cover the island, but this the island isn't producing this trash. Plastic dumped into the ocean by other countries floats to Midway Atoll and washes on shore. It is impossible to find an Atoll nest or area of their landing grounds that doesn't have trash on it.

The main take away from class today was that our pollution is affecting countries and creatures that we might not even be aware of. Plastic dumped into the ocean will travel thousands of miles. It disintegrates and is eaten by unsuspecting creatures. As a global community we must look for solutions to our plastic waste disaster. It is difficult for a lot of people to understand the depth of an issue without being able to see the direct effects on their life. We must ask ourselves how we can stop ocean pollution, as it is harming species and ecosystems worldwide.

Links:

A film relating to the Albatross and ocean pollution: http://www.albatrossthefilm.com/

The paper co-authored by our guest Kara Lavender Law about where plastic pollution comes from and how it affects the oceans: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/768

Blog Post for the week of January 25th

Water Quality

By Alison Higgins

This week we took our first trip as a class to the Wells Natural Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR), where we met with Jeremy Miller, who taught us about the NERR System and the System Wide Monitoring Program (SWMP) system that he manages at the reserve. Jeremy helped us better understand the NERR system and the enormous amount of data they provide for the public.

The System Wide Monitoring Program that Jeremy coordinates is a series of monitoring stations throughout the reserve that collects data about the water quality and weather patterns. SWMP takes a sample every 15 minutes and is able to collect data for nutrient levels, turbidity, dissolved oxygen levels, pH levels and more, as well as a record weather patterns.

These monitoring systems are set up at all 29 estuarine reserves in the country, some collecting data as far back as 25 years ago. All of this data is sorted and made accessible to the public in a user friendly way. Anyone can access all the data SWMP has collected, and organize it in to graphs.

Jeremy showed us how to look up specific periods of time, and use the data to help explain abnormal readings. We split into groups and Jeremy gave each of us a scenario, with location, date range, and parameters and we had to use this information, SWMP, and outside resources to try and determine what was happening at the time to cause the unusual data.

This data helps use better understand the impacts outside forces have on coastal ecosystems. Runoff, pollution, extreme weather, flooding, and more impact these ecosystems and the NERRs around the country show us first hand, using SWMP, the effect all of these factors have on the water quality, which is crucial in these mainly aquatic environments.

Water quality determines what can and cannot survive in an environment, we are seeing changes in water quality around the world that are greatly influencing ecosystems, in most cases for the worst. Better understanding the aspects of water quality and how things like pollution impact it, allows us to recognize trends and hopefully use that information in the future to protect these threatened environments.

Links

National Estuarine Research Reserve System, Centralized Data Management Office