Wooster Junior Independent Study students shine with their project poster presentations

The College of Wooster has a required Independent Study system for all students, and it is a marvelous program. Each student, usually in the spring semester of their junior year, signs up for the Junior Independent Study course. It is taught as a tutorial in the Earth Sciences department, so each student chooses an advisor and a project that will likely form the basis of their later Senior Independent Study thesis project. It is a delight to see our students starting their research lives with independence, curiosity and enthusiasm.

Today the juniors presented posters on their work to date. Nick Wiesenberg, our ace geological technician, took these photos in Scovel Hall. We didn’t get everyone, but you can get a good impression of the events.

Garrett is here presenting his poster on sponge spicules in Brown’s Lake cores. He is going to see if these sponges can serve as proxies for environmental changes associated with European settlement.

Natalie is working on a joint anthropology/environmental geoscience investigation of Lake Erie and the various stakeholder communities involved with it environmental protection and conservation.

Athena, another double major with Anthropology and a self-designed major, is studying climate change in the Arctic and its environmental and geopolitical effects on stakeholder communities.

Mike is studying conflict minerals, especially in Africa.

Vann is doing paleoseismology in the Caribbean associated with a summer internship he recently earned.

Corey is looking at the origins and properties of the mud used on baseballs in major league games.

Jameson, a double major with Chemistry and environmental geoscience, is studying the distribution of PFAS pollutants in rainwater.

Jimmy (in the gray shirt) is investigating drainage and tile systems on an Ohio farm.

Good luck to these intrepid Juniors as they pursue their research dreams!