“The beauty of this research is that what we discover will help us better understand how agriculture impacts streams and rivers, the ecosystems within the streams and rivers, and human health not just in Costa Rica, but here in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.”
Fall 2011
Upstream
Newsletter
Honor your friends and family with a special gift this holiday season — the gift of fresh water. Your support allows us to conduct groundbreaking freshwater research and produce watershed education programs for all ages.
$50,000 Matching Grant Opportunity! Never given to the Center before? An anonymous donor will match all first-time gifts to our Annual Fund. Already a Friend? Increase your donation, and the portion that exceeds your last Annual Fund gift will be matched. Please help us meet this challenge! Donate online now or contact Kay Dixon.
Stroud™ Scientists at Work
Gone Fishin’: Evaluating the Threat of Agricultural Contaminants in the Río Sierpe
Like the mountain road that led Stroud™ Water Research Center scientists to their Costa Rican study site twice already this year, the way to scientific discovery is often long, bumpy, unpredictable, and fraught with obstacles. But as with any epic adventure, there was a reward worthy to be earned. Across borders, over mountains, and through woods and waters they traveled in search of their golden chalice: fish — and macroinvertebrates too. Read more»
The Magic of Revealing the Mysteries of Metaecosystems
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” — Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, Author and Inventor
In a long white lab coat, wearing pale blue, translucent medical gloves, Jinjun Kan sits at what’s called a clean bench. The scene is stark, white, sterile. To prevent his samples from being contaminated, Kan has already disinfected the bench’s tabletop. Like a magician about to make his assistant disappear, he pulls down a screen over the opening of the work area. With the flip of a UV light switch, presto chango, the microorganisms inside are gone, or rather, dead. For his next trick, Kan gathers a set of 12 stream sediment samples containing microorganisms from which he will extract, those mysterious double-stranded genetic coding materials of all life — DNA. Read more»
March of the Ancient Vertebrates: Eels & Lampreys in White Clay Creek . . . and the Technologies to Understand Them
Lampreys are not eels. That fact needs to be made clear at the outset because most people think they are — including this writer before he was set straight in a recent interview by William H. Eldridge, Ph.D., head of the Stroud™ Water Research Center’s Fish Molecular Ecology Group. Read more»
Scientists Tour the Critical Zone Observatories at Fair Hill and Stroud™ Water Research Center
Local bow hunters and about 80 water research scientists from Europe, North America, China, and Australia were among the few humans braving the woods of the 565-square-mile Christina River watershed on a damp and chilly morning November 10. Read more»
Stroud™ Educators at Work
Attention Educators: We’re offering FREE 4-hour stream studies for Pennsylvania public school students in 5th grade and up. Funding is limited: first come, first served. Some scholarship money is available for non-public and non-PA schools as well.
Our program calendar for 2012 is open, so schedule your FREE program today, even if you won’t be coming out until next October! Contact Christina Medved for more information and scheduling.
Model My Watershed Reaches Students and Teachers
Since we first introduced Model My Watershed to Upstream Newsletter readers in the fall of 2009, educators at the Stroud Water Research Center have reached many new milestones with this innovative project. Read more»
Events
The Water’s Edge: An Evening in Review
Among colorful displays of lavender orchids, Chinese hibiscus in lemon and burnt orange, lollipop plants, and towering ferns, over 200 guests came together on Tuesday, October 11 to support the Stroud™ Water Research Center and celebrate its main focus, fresh water.
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slideshow and read full story»
How to Cultivate a More Livable Landscape
Want to learn how you can reduce the human footprint on your own bit of Earth? Stroud Water Research Center and Longwood Gardens are hosting a series of National Science Foundation (NSF)–funded lectures, “Livable Landscapes: Cultivating an Ecosystem Esthetic,” at Longwood Gardens. Read more»
In the News
Insects a Top Water Quality Assessment Tool
Dr. John Jackson of the Stroud Water Research Center explained the importance of insects, especially mayflies, in evaluating water quality during an interview with Virginia Cody of The Times Tribune. Read more»
Center Provides Solid Science to Public and Policymakers
Dr. Lou Kaplan, a senior research scientist at the Stroud Water Research Center, spoke with Brian Bowling, a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review staff writer, about how changes to small headwater streams influence drinking water quality. Read more»
Scientists Collect Climate Change Data From Irene Flooding
EarthSky was just one of many news media to report on the scientists from the Stroud Water Research Center and the University of Delaware who braved Hurricane Irene to collect floodwater. Read more»
Stroud™ Scientists & Educators Present
Disseminating Our Findings to Our Peers & the Public at Large
Our ability to disseminate our findings to a broad audience allows us to increase awareness and create a public dialogue centered on the protection, preservation, and restoration of watersheds everywhere. It’s for that reason that our scientists and educators engage in both scientific and public forums to share their findings. The following highlights recent presentations.
- Scientists Share Stroud™ Studies on Fish and Invertebrate Responses to Temperature Change at Thermal Ecology and Regulation Workshop
- Stroud™ Scientists Travel to Prague to Present Findings at the 21st Annual Goldschmidt Conference
- Pennsylvania Watershed Specialists Learn to Build Environmental Sensor Networks
- Leaf Pack Workshops Held at Wilson College
- Whose Water is It, Anyway?
