Measuring the Health of a Stream

Adam Jost ’08, earth science major, spent two URSI summers working on the Casperkill Assessment Project, a multidisciplinary study of a stream that runs through the Vassar campus en route to the Hudson River. “We worked right alongside the professors to figure out what questions we wanted to ask and how we were going to measure different aspects of the stream’s health.”

Q. Tell me about your URSI (Undergraduate Research Summer Institute) experience.
I worked on the Casperkill Project for two summers. The Casperkill is a stream that runs through Dutchess County to the Hudson River, and a good chunk of it runs through the Vassar campus. A group of professors from different disciplines—biology, earth science, chemistry—thought it would be an interesting interdisciplinary project to measure the health of the stream from its point of origin all the way to the Hudson and to look at how the stream changes as it passes through different sections of the county. So each professor had a couple of URSI fellows working with him or her, and we would all go out together to do the stream sampling. We had sixteen different sites along the stream where we took measurements and samples. The first summer we did the sampling once a week, and then during the year, the professors continued the sampling once a month so that by the next summer we would have a full year of data to look at.

Q. What did you like the most about it?
The really cool thing the first year was that it was the first time they were doing the project, and the students had a lot of input. We worked right alongside the professors to figure out what questions we wanted to ask and how we were going to measure different aspects of the stream’s health. Every student got to specialize in a particular area. So, for example, I was doing road salt, somebody else was doing heavy metals, other people were looking at organisms in the stream, and that was really cool. We each had our own little niche, but we were all working together as well. The cool thing about the second year was that, coming back, I got to think about the questions I had from the previous summer, and say, like, okay, this is what we know, and this is what we don’t know. How can we use what we know to address the questions that we still have, and how can we take this experiment a step further?

Q. How’d you hear about Vassar and decide to come here?
Well, when I originally started looking, I was interested in two things—film and environmental science. I wanted a small liberal arts school in the Northeast. So I started searching around and found out that Vassar has a great film program and a great environmental studies program. I applied early decision; I didn’t fill out apps to any other schools. I was just hoping that I would get in, and I did!

Q. Did you double-major?
No—I never got around to taking a film course. They always seemed to be scheduled at the same time as the earth science courses I wanted to take. I took a geology class my first semester, back when we still called it the Geology Department. The course was called the Evolution of Earth and Its Life, and I just loved it, so I took two courses the next semester, and by now I’ve taken about 14 courses in the department. The really cool thing about earth science is that it encompasses all the other sciences. There’s chemistry, there’s math, there’s biology, and they all sort of come together to define the big picture. And even things like economics or political science are applicable. I’ve always been interested not so much in the rocks, per se, but the environment as a whole. I really like the interaction between water and the forest and the animals that live in it and how that changes under various conditions. That said, my thesis is actually about rocks. I’m looking at these really old limestones, 415-million-year-old limestones, and analyzing the carbon isotopes to determine how the conditions in the ocean were changing over this boundary in time.

Q. What are you planning to do after Vassar?
I’m planning to go to graduate school. I’m going to be moving to San Francisco and working for a year and then applying to schools out there. My interests are always changing, and it always has to do with what classes I’m taking. So I’ll come out of a class saying, man, I really want to study sediments, or I really want to study glaciers. Right now, I’m interested in biogeochemistry, which involves looking at the chemistry of ecosystems. The Casperkill Project is a good example of that.

Q. What do you eventually want to do?
I’ve been really inspired by my professors over the years, so I think that I would really enjoy doing a similar job doing research and teaching at the same time. It’s really fun trying to get someone to understand what really excites me, and then to get them excited about it, too. That’s what I’d like to do.

Q. What’s the advantage of studying science at a school like Vassar as opposed to a big research university?
At Vassar, you get really small classes. I’ve gotten to know my professors and the students very well, which really helps me learn because I’m more comfortable asking questions in that kind of setting. In terms of research, you can just talk to your professors. They have plenty of things they’re working on that you can get involved in, too. And at least in my department, they’re willing to bend over backwards to help you do what you want to do. That’s why I think it’s great to do science at Vassar. It’s really personal and intimate, and I think if you go to a big university, you’re sacrificing that. And also, the liberal arts context makes it much more interesting because, in earth science especially, we get to include issues of economics and sociology.

Q. How has Vassar changed you?
Well, I found it really hard to drive my freshman year because I found myself really distracted by the roadcuts! But seriously, I find myself thinking a lot more critically about the ideas that are presented to me. If I watch a television program about climate change or whatever it may be, I find that I always try to question it and say, how did they come to that conclusion, and is that valid? Why or why not? I find myself doing that constantly, really analyzing the whole situation. I want to arrive at my own decision on an issue rather than just be told that it’s this way.

Q. What’s your best class?
I really enjoy the class that I’m in right now, Stable Isotopes in Environmental Science. I took a course on paleoclimatology with Kirsten Menking—that was a wonderful course. I took another class with her on geomorphology, which was also great.

Q. What’s the best nonscience course you’ve taken?
It would most definitely be Art History 105-106. I loved it. I was actually thinking about getting an art history correlate, but I didn’t really have the time. I took the course my junior year, but if I had taken it a year or two before, I would have probably tried to do the correlate. It was something I had never studied before, and it was just so fascinating. One thing I really liked about it is that the course is taught by the whole department so you get a taste of each professor. And then you also have a discussion section, so you get to meet with a small group of people and go down into the art gallery and get a taste of analyzing paintings yourself rather than just listening to someone talk about them. I loved the Hudson River School paintings. The paintings are beautiful, and a lot of them have very interesting geology, so I just felt like I could really connect with those.

Q. Is it important for a scientist to have those other kinds of interests and experiences?
I think it’s really easy to corner yourself into one subject or one perspective. Science people and humanities people are constantly arguing about which one is more important. And they’re both essential because there are different aspects that make us human. There’s an expression aspect, which is predominant in literature and art and music and things like that, and there’s an analytical one that’s expressed in science and some of the other fields as well. To be a whole person, you need both.

Q. What have you gotten at Vassar that you wouldn’t have gotten elsewhere?
The first thing that comes to mind is just the relationships I have with my fellow majors and my professors. I think that’s an incredible thing. It feels like a family. I don’t know if you get that in other places as well—maybe if it’s an environment similar to Vassar’s. I don’t think it’s something you get in an environment where there’s a TA in front of two or three hundred people. I can’t imagine myself in that setting, because I always want to ask questions, and I want to go out in the field and collect things and touch them and experience them and measure them.