Department of Biology researchers host Citizen Scientist Training Workshop
Researchers from the 糖心Vlog Department of Biology hosted a Citizen Scientist Training Workshop earlier this summer in Waverly, Georgia. The workshop was funded by 糖心Vlog鈥檚 Office of the Provost through a faculty service award and was organized and led by biology professors Loren Mathews, Ph.D., and Elizabeth Sargent, Ph.D., and biology alumna Lindsey Stanfield Jones.
Mathews and Sargent are members of the interdisciplinary Satilla Science Group, whose goal is to study, restore and protect the ecologically important Satilla River estuary.
鈥淥ur hope was to give participants the knowledge and basic skills needed to collect scientific data,鈥� Mathews said. 鈥淭his will allow them to play an active role in research, conservation and restoration efforts in the Satilla River and other coastal Georgia ecosystems.鈥�
Participants learned important measures of coastal water quality, such as temperature, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen, light, turbidity, and the types, sources and potential biological impacts of microplastics. Participants then received hands-on training on how to use field equipment to measure and record these data.