Above Station1 interns Amanda Martinez and Thomas Rua created the above poster and an accompanying video describing their work with the Ipswich River Watershed Association this summer.
We were fortunate for the opportunity to host two incredible interns this summer through the Station1 Frontiers Fellowship program. Station1 is a non-profit higher education institution that accepts students from diverse backgrounds through a competitive selection process and places them with companies and other non-profits to work on a research project over the course of a summer. We recently completed a project with Amanda Martinez and Thomas Rua to study our river health index and identify data to enhance the health index scoring method and how to better integrate the index with outreach programs.
Amanda and Thomas created a final poster and accompanying video describing their project and findings. Over the course of the summer, they learned about the challenges faced by the Ipswich River and about the organization’s work to protect it. They decided to study the River Health Index and contribute their insights on ways to enhance the scoring system and outreach. The River Health Index compares monitoring results collected by volunteers for dissolved oxygen, temperature and streamflow with ideal conditions for fish and combines this information into a score that can be read at a glance through a map of the river and tributaries.
Amanda and Thomas improved the River Health Index by identifying technical solutions to incorporate aquatic macroinvertebrate monitoring data as a direct indicator of river vitality. They also emphasized the social aspects of how human activity affects river health and the need to integrate findings of river health with community outreach.
We want to thank Amanda and Thomas for their hard work, dedication and their meaningful contribution to protecting the Ipswich River! We would also like to thank Salem State Masters Student, Kayla Dorey for developing the river health map viewer.