South Shore Estuary Learning
Facilitator Program
sSELF
The New York State Marine
Education Association (NYSMEA,) received a grant for the
“South Shore Estuary Learning Facilitator Program (sSELF)” from The ERM
Group Foundation, Inc.
Environmental Resource Management (ERM,) is a globally active environmental
consulting firm.
The Foundation is a not-for-profit organization formed by the employees. The
stated goal of the
Foundation is “To provide human resources and financial assistance to
projects that contribute to
the improvement of the earth’s environment, the quality of life and
sustainable development throughout
the world through appropriate charitable, educational and scientific
endeavors.” Under this $8,000 grant
for the 2007 calendar year, NYSMEA, in cooperation with the SSER office, provided guidance to several
schools and/or environmentally oriented groups on stewardship projects within
the SSER. Lou Siegel, the
grant writer and long time NYSMEA board member is the Estuary Learning
Facilitator (ELF) coordinating
activities carried out under the grant.
For more information on
NYSMEA http://www.NYSMEA.org
The ERM Group Foundation http://www.erm.com/ERM/foundation.nsf/pages/foundation
To join the program
SSELF Program, contact SSELF@NYSMEA.org
References:
Non-Point Sources of Pollution into the South Shore Estuary Reserve
Each group is supplied with basic water testing equipment
Great South
Bay Buddies shown above as they tour the facilities at Dowling College after
methods orientation session in June of 2007. The
protocols necessary to measure several
parameters including air temperature, humidity, precipitation, wind direction
and velocity water temperature, density, salinity, transparency, oxygen,
nitrates, nitrites, ammonia, and pH were discussed.
The group
has begun monitoring the waters of the South Shore Estuary.
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August 27, 2007 methods training boat trip to several tributaries which empty into
the Hempstead bays
(l to r)
1. Lou Siegel, Estuary Learning Facilitator and Rob Weltner, President of
SPLASH measure the oxygen concentration
in the water.
2. Captain Don Harris, SPLASH Vice President and our Captain for the day
takes a reading of the wind speed and
direction, air temperature and humidity of the air.
3. Maureen Dolan-Murphy Chair of the SSER CAC teams up with Gwen Lerner of
the Nassau County Soil and
Water Conservation District to assess the phosphate level of a water sample.
Thank you for the amazing hands-on floating science lab lesson
Thank you for the great experience today.
Next to catching big fish,
it was the best thing on the water I've done in a long time. I look
forward to getting something good started here. Thanks again.
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Estuary Learning Facilitator, Lou Siegel demonstrates use of
equipment to
students in Donna Edgar's Bayport-Blue Point Ecology Club prior to their
starting
measurements.of the Brown's River.
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Mrs. Ferlin and students from the East Islip Ecology Club who will be participating in sSELF program
| Bayshore High School Bay Buddies in the field at the Brightwaters watershed, Islip | ||
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Freshwater test site |
Retrieving water sample |
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| Oxygen testing with Chemetric Kit | ||
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| Density and Salinity with the hydrometer | Using test strips for nutrients | |
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Recording data |
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