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3/11/24-3/15/24 ~ Week 1 !

Hello! This is our weekly update of what we accomplished in our first week in Venice. This week, we started to get to know our sponsors better, see the sights of Venice, and set up fun interviews for this and next week with other consultants who help out Algae Scope with their macroalgae farm goal. The first interview was actually this week! It was with Alejandra Noren, a chemical engineer, who specializes in the business side of blue carbon credits. We learned so much information on how companies get certifications for how much carbon offset they have and learned about different bodies of companies such as The Golden Standard and Vera. We are excited to continue the interviews that we have scheduled for next week, so stay tuned.

3/18/24-3/22/24 ~ Week 2 !

We are back again with another fun week of algae and interviews! This week was quite eventful. We were able to see a potential spot for a macroalgae farm that use to be used as a fish farm. It doesn't have the ideal conditions for a farm. However, we and our sponsors think it is a great starting point to see the capability an algae farm might have even with inadequate conditions. We are hoping to do more research into the testing of this pond's water. Below are some pictures of Sant' Erasmo from that day.

Along with our fun trip to Sant' Erasmo we were able to attend a Novel Farm Conference on Thursday. This was a day trip with our sponsors to see different algae farmers present along with Professor Dr. Roberto Pastres working with Algae Scope to understand Ulva species. We are planning to go visit the Venice University lab that he works in to interview him in the coming weeks. Along with these fun field trips we also had a great interview with Algae Scope consultant Dr. Farshid Pahlevani who guided us in the right direction regarding agal biomass and bioproduct production.

Sant'Erasmo Potential Farm

Fiona, Sam, Sophia, Maire, Jaclyn

Sant'Erasmo Ulva

Here is a picture near the Sant' Erasmo site. It is showing that Ulva species of macroalgae grows in the Venetian Lagoon

3/25/24-3/29/24 ~ Week 3 !

Another week of interviews and writing! This week, we interviewed the Co-founder of Algae Scope, Elvira Rakova. She helped us understand the company's full vision! Along with her interview, we finalized all the interviews we needed to do within the next week. We also learned how to use ArcGIS for the mapping we need for our MCDA. This week also consisted of research, writing, and blue carbon credit calculations (seen in the picture to the left).

4/1/24-4/5/24 ~ Week 4 !

Even though this was a short week, we accomplished a lot! This week was the last week of data collection. We conducted 3 different interviews that will help us with our findings. We headed over to one of Venice's universities on Wednesday to talk with Dr. Roberto Pastres. See the picture to the left. It shows his research work on the Ulva species and BeBlue farming. Thursday was full of blue credit calculations and a meeting with another professor at the university, Dr. Adriano Sfriso, who also talked about all his research on the Ulva species and his experience with it inside the Venetian Lagoon. Friday, we were able to take a trip to Sant' Erasmo to start the seeding process at the old fishpond. We talked with the farmer who is letting us use this pond and gained valuable information. Along with an interview with Jeremy Pal who helped us understand the maps of the lagoon better. Stay on the lookout for next week, when we will talk more about our Sant' Erasmo trip!

Sant'Erasmo Trip and Results Week 4-5!

As mentioned last week, Sophia and Jaclyn traveled to Sant' Erasmo to seed the Ulva. We gathered Ulva from the lagoon and the pond at our Sant'Erasmo location. We set up trays to conduct different seeding experiments. There were four boxes with potential rope: Lagoon Water, Lagoon Algae; Lagoon Water, Pond Algae; Pond Water, Pond Algae, Pond Water, Lagoon Algae. We cut up the algae into small pieces to get the algae's spores to start coming out and attach to the rope. We also got to have a great lunch with a local gardener, letting us use the old fishing pond. Our sponsor, Natasha, came back Monday to check on the seeding processes, and it was a success!! Natasha on Monday then continued by making a raft to put the Ulva inside the pond.

Sophia and Jaclyn getting ready to collect the Ulva from the Lagoon

Sophia collecting Lagoon water for our experiements

Here are the trays we used for the seeding

Here is the raft our sponsor Natasha made for the pond

4/8/24-4/12/24 ~ Week 5!

This week was filled with a fun trip and writing, writing, and more writing. At the start of the week, Maire and Jaclyn took a trip to Blue Week, where our sponsor from Algae Scope presented. Along with supporting our sponsors, we saw a different aspect of the company. We gained information on the EU-ETS and how the EU limits carbon emissions through transportation. We also saw Sea The Change present on how they want to start to help companies save Venice. The rest of the week consisted of perfecting our intro/background, writing our "Information Booklet," and writing the findings section of our final paper.

Start of Presentation

This is a photo of our sponsor Natasha presenting

Our Slide

This is a photo of our sponsor presenting a slide we had made for her during ID2050

4/15/24-4/19/24 ~ Week 6!

This week was full of writing! We are approaching the end of the term, so now it is time to take everything we have found and start writing about it. This week, we completed our findings draft, made ArcGIS mapping of sit locations, and prepared our executive summary and final chapter outline. We are still finalizing our paper and making sure it makes sense. It is great! We also met with Fabio, who gave us so many helpful tips on how we can improve our presentation for the final presentation in 1 1/2 weeks. See you next week for our final update on the project!

4/22/24-4/26/24 ~ Week 7!

We are finally on the last stretch! This week was full of practicing our presentation and finishing our final draft. We have constantly practiced our presentation to ensure we do a great job on Monday. In preparation for submitting our final paper, we have finished our final draft and are sending it out to our interviewees to confirm we understood their knowledge clearly. A fun thing we did this week was take a picture with both our sponsors, Natasha and Fiona. They have been so wonderful! Thank you all for keeping up with the blog!

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