This summer, I started working at ALLARM as a brand new ALLARMie along with two returning co-workers, David and Kristin, and four full-time staff, Isabel, Jill, Lane and Olive who allowed me to gain new experiences. Besides the big events addressed in the past posts (like visiting a summer camp, working through data interpretation, and IDing macros!), I was introduced to a lot of new things in two months. This post is made to introduce my day-to-day experience, the smaller events, and other fun stuff that happened over summer.
A day at ALLARM is never repetitive. My day would start at 8:30am where I’d check my planner, listing all of my tasks. We usually have multiple projects going on at the same time, for example, an individual project and event prep. The individual projects I did were writing QC (quality control) letters and an article for the Stream of Consciousness (ALLARM’s annual newsletter), and data approvals. I balanced these with longer-prep project like the OCCA presentation about land use and for the East Pennsboro Youth Education macro workshop.
One of my favorite tasks was monthly LeTort monitoring. We stopped at seven sites from upstream to downstream of LeTort Spring Run and collected water samples and data at each site. Each outing took around half a work day, but it was interesting to see the difference between each site along the same stream. It became more interesting when analyzing the parameters such as pH, nitrate nitrogen and conductivity in the lab. The change in values each month made me think critically about what made the difference and the importance of long-term data collection.
After the big events such as Northern Tier Stream Team Macro workshop and OCCA data interpretation, our lab fridge was filled with sample bottles from volunteers to be quality controlled. A few days after the events, we were settled in the lab and conducting QC for every parameter. It was nice to have a full day to work on QC instead of having to split it between many shorter shifts. As we completed more QC, more dishes piled up in the bins. We were always saying, “Always dishes!!”.
When I had a little break from big events, I worked on a small research project and wrote an article to be hung up on campus – our “Water Facts” – about Biosolids. I was excited to contribute to a publication which I always enjoyed reading in the bathrooms before working at ALLARM.
At the end of summer, we did a day-long road trip to find good macroinvertebrate sampling sites for the future. We visited and explored four sites in Central Pennsylvania. A lunch break and ice-cream stop on the way is always my favorite part of a long trip. This summer, I visited so many cute towns in PA and NY that I had never been to for workshops.
I appreciate the opportunity to work at ALLARM over the summer. I am grateful that I experienced a lot of different work from lab to research, and outreach in two months. Having more flexibility and time allowed me to get a better understanding of what ALLARM is doing and get to know more about wonderful ALLARM members! I am thrilled to continue growing and learning new knowledge in the fall semester.