Columbia River Estuary Science Education and Outreach (CRESCENDO)
Principal Investigators: Gretchen Rollwagen-Bollens, Stephen Bollens, Tamara Holmlund
Student: Kristin Connelly, Jude Wait, Lucas Bargmann
Funded by: Washington Sea Grant
Award period: 2016-2018
Project Summary:
CRESCENDO took a novel approach to investigating estuarine processes within an ecosystem highly impacted by human activity and land development. We integrated traditional scientific research in the CRE with investigation of how high school students who participated in all aspects of the research responded to their experience, both in knowledge gain and changes in perception and attitude toward science and their environment. This approach allowed us to explore the potential feedback links between estuarine ecosystem function and human activity, with the high school students as models of how citizens may modify their activities in sensitive aquatic watersheds as a result of authentic engagement in research about their local environment.
Our overarching research questions were:
- What are the links between upstream watershed processes, land use and human activity in the CRE and downstream estuarine health, as indicated by nutrients, phytoplankton and zooplankton?
- What are the links between high school students’ understanding of CRE ecology, their abilities in scientific practices, and their perceptions of and attitudes toward the CRE landscape and participation in authentic, collaborative scientific research?
We explored these questions using both scientific and educational research methodologies, in collaboration with science teachers and their students at five high schools in districts located along the upstream-downstream gradient of the CRE, from Washougal to Ilwaco, WA.
Overall, our results demonstrated a distinct geographic pattern in the resident zooplankton assemblage of the CRE between the marine-influenced river mouth at the Pacific coast compared to the freshwater (yet still tidally-influenced) upstream reaches of the estuary, where the invasive copepod Pseudodiaptomus forbesi now comprises >50% of the zooplankton abundance (Connelly et al., 2020). In addition, We found that many students made significant gains in their ecological knowledge and understanding of scientific inquiry practices, demonstrating deeper understanding of the connections between local land use and water quality in the CRE, as well how nutrient concentrations vary seasonally and along the axis of the estuary. Students also showed enthusiasm for taking part in a “real” scientific research project, collaborating with university scientists, contributing “their” data to an investigative effort that extended beyond their own school, and the opportunity to get outdoors during science class.
Publications resulting from this project:
Rollwagen-Bollens G, Holmlund T, Wait* J. (2022) Actively participating in university-sponsored ecological research increases high school students’ knowledge of and attitudes about science. Frontiers in Environmental Science 9: 797769.
Connelly* K, Rollwagen-Bollens G, Bollens S. (2020) Seasonal and longitudinal variability of zooplankton assemblages along a river-dominated estuarine gradient. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 245: 106980.
Rollwagen-Bollens G, Holmlund T, Bollens S, Wait J, Zimmerman J, Connelly* K, Bargmann+ L (2019) Engaging high school students as collaborators in ecological investigation of the Columbia River Estuary: Lessons from a transdisciplinary university-high school partnership. Limnology & Oceanography Bulletin 28(2): 45-51