Center for the Environment

In the northern part of Iceland an unknown force is creating mysterious changes in the mud of its deepest lakes. Every 80-100 years, the chemical fingerprint of the lake mud changes dramatically for a brief time and then returns to what it was before. This bizarre cyclical behavior has been going on for at least 900 years and nothing like it has been reported anywhere else in the world. If Lisa Doner is right, the answer to this mystery lies in a climate feature called the North Atlantic Oscillation.

Doner, a research professor at the Center for the Environment at Plymouth State University, was recently awarded a $600,000 National Science Foundation grant to study the deposits in the bottom of lakes in Iceland and how the North Atlantic Oscillation affects the process of deposition. Doner explains, “The North Atlantic Oscillation, or NAO for short, and a related, larger circulation pattern called the Arctic Oscillation (AO), together control most of the Northern Hemisphere’s year-to-year atmospheric variation. The NAO and AO have been credited with causing many of the recent patterns of drought, flooding and severe weather in North America, Europe and the Middle-East, including last winter’s repeated snowstorms in the southeast and the colder and wetter winters in NH.”

So why is Iceland the only region that seems to show this phenomenon? And how does this relate to our regional climate?

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Research assistant professor Doug Earick, in collaboration with PSU’s Department of Education’s Early Childhood Program, has received a Mathematics & Science Partnership grant from the NH Department of Education for a project on Teacher as Researcher: The role of inquiry, and learning progressions through environmental science studies. Over the next year, this $75,000 grant will focus on teacher professional development for up to thirty K-5 teachers from the Newfound School District in the use of inquiry in science education utilizing the field of environmental studies. 

The project will provide a variety of outreach services to the teachers and schools in the project including:

• embedded professional development through monthly workshops with a focus on K-5 requirements as outlined in the New Hampshire Frameworks targeting the recognition and understanding of learning progressions,
• technical and instructional assistance in the development of inquiry-based curriculum utilizing science progressions and in the design of authentic assessments to benefit inquiry approaches with K-5 children that are geographic and culturally relevant to the schools represented in this project,
• mentorship in the application, implementation, and analysis of systemic action research, and
• collaborative publication and presentation opportunities. 

Hydrologist Mark Green from the Center for the Environment will present a cyberseminar on October 1, 2010 at 3 pm for the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI). Mark’s talk is titled “Extracting characteristic hydrologic patterns from many catchments: the case of stream water total nitrogen to total phosphorus ratios.” For more information and participate in the seminar, visit the CUAHSI Web site.

CUAHSI is a consortium of universities, colleges, and research institutions in the United States and around the world. They enable the water science community to advance the understanding of water and its centrality to life, earth, and human society.

Come join us for our fall colloquium. Each Wednesday afternoon from 4-5 pm the Center for the Environment hosts a speaker for our colloquium series in room 001 of the Boyd Science Center. The talks cover a wide range of topics around environmental science and sustainability. The colloquium is available for graduate credit and we also invite the community to come for free. For more information, contact Angela Uhlman. Read on for the complete list of dates and speakers.

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Dr. Brian Eisenhauer has been named interim director of the Center for the Environment. The change in leadership, according to University Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Julie Bernier, will ensure the Center for the Environment continues to develop partnerships and work together to provide applied research on behalf of the lakes region and White Mountains.  Brian was an inaugural member of the President’s Commission on Environmental Sustainability (PCES) and its co-chair, as well as having served as Associate Director of the Center for the Environment.  Bernier said Eisenhauer is well-qualified and respected by his peers.

“Brian has been an exceptional Associate Director for the Center,” said Bernier. “I am confident in his ability to work with the team and our partners to move the mission of the Center forward.” 

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This fall, the Center welcomes six new graduate students to the MS in Environmental Science and Policy program. These students have come from New Hampshire to Alaska to engage in environmental science courses and research projects. An orientation was recently held to introduce them to the program, PSU, and Plymouth.

The 2nd New Hampshire Water and Watershed Conference will be held on March 25 & 26, 2011 at Plymouth State University. The Center for the Environment is a sponsor and host of the conference.

The call for abstracts is available and abstracts are due October 29, 2010. Conference sponsors, exhibitors, and room sponsors are also being sought.

During the late winter and early spring of 2010, the Center for the Environment, with assistance from th Israel’s River Volunteer Advisory Group ,tested the Israel’s River  in Jefferson and Lancaster, NH for chloride. While chloride occurs naturally in our water sources, the N.H. Department of Environmental Services reports that testing over the last 25 years has indicated that chloride levels have increased steadily and substantially in some of New Hampshire’s freshwater streams, rivers, lakes, ponds, wetlands, and groundwater. It is believed that road salt is the source of this increase level of chloride.

On May 18, 2010, Mark Green and Aaron Johnson from the Center for the Environment present the results of the recent testing of the Israel’s River at a meeting of the Jefferson Conservation Commission. Samples were taken from the river at various times and a sensor was also put into the river in Lancaster. The sensor provided data every 15 minutes and could be compared to the less frequent physical samples that were analyzed at the Center’s Environmental Research Laboratory.

The results indicate that the Israel’s River has low levels of chloride, but Center hopes to continue testing the river in the future to better understand the dynamics of chloride.

• Coos Democrat May 26 2010

Salt, or sodium chloride, is the most common de-icing material used on New Hampshire’s roads, parking lots, and other paved surfaces in the winter months. Have you ever wondered what happens to all this salt? Could it be going into our rivers, lakes, and aquifers?

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Are you interested in the North Country’s lakes and rivers? If so, the Center for the Environment at Plymouth State University (PSU) and NH Department of Environmental Services (DES) are looking for volunteers to help monitor our surface water quality through the state’s Volunteer Lake Assessment Program (VLAP) and Volunteer River Assessment Program (VRAP).

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