Earth and Environmental Sciences Virtual Information Session

Hey Adam, can you hear me?

Jason, I might need your help. Hope wait, hang on.

Oh, you can hear me.

That's weird, 'cause I can't hear anything.

Alright, somehow I got to the end of my presentation.

I don't want to be at the end.

All right, there we go.

Hello welcome, I think we're just waiting for some others to join.

We'll get started here in just a minute.

While we're waiting a few minutes, I'll go ahead and introduce myself to those of you that are already have joined us. I'm Jody head motzki. I'm chair of the Department of earth and environmental Sciences.

So welcome to the web and R.

Again, I'm just going to wait a few minutes and I've been told that there should be 16 of you and I only see 10 so far.

Hello.

So while we're waiting a few more minutes, so let me just say that if you look at this first slide here at emphasizes some of the wonderful field sites and field work that our students and faculty have done, or I've been to including local sites.

This is pretty far afield, such as Christmas Island in the South Pacific, and Bonaire in the Caribbean, South Africa, the Glop Agos, and of course, the Florida Everglades. So if you have a passion for the environment, if you want to help build a sustainable future. If you enjoy the outdoors than you might want to consider a major in one of our programs.

You can also type in questions as we go. I'll do my best to answer them in real time, but it's a little tricky to keep my eye on the presentation as well as all the questions coming in. If you have any so.

It may just need to answer some of them at the end, but I will. I will do my best to keep up with the questions.

So you can go ahead and submit some if you have them. I know I have a.

I do have one question that was already pre submitted about conservation biology and marine biology, so I will try to address that as we go.

Alright, it is 4 minutes after the hour according to my Clock, so I guess we will go ahead and continue.

So our majors are prepare students for not only graduate study, but also careers in fields such as conservation and Wildlife Management, Sustainability and consulting alot of our majors end up working in the environmental consulting industry. Some of our students have gone on to teach in the K through 12.

Uh, levels and some of our students prefer to seek careers in mineral and water resources, as well as policy advocacy and so forth. The image here is one of our environmental geology majors who did a research project in the South Pacific at Christmas Island with one of my colleagues and she graduated last year.

So we actually have four majors and one minor. We have two separate majors in geology, both a traditional geology major, and then also an environmental geology major. And we have two separate tracks or majors in the Environmental. Science is what we call a natural science track or a social science check. They are both science based. However, we don't have environmental studies per se, so I can certainly address questions about that if you have them. But it's just the natural track, has a little bit more science.

The social track a little bit less science and then some of the electives are more focused on fields such as sociology, political science, geography, and so forth.

We also have a minor in environmental sustainability and this is really geared towards any major we have students from history business, our own majors such as geology and even Environmental Science, and so we currently have, I think at least 50 or so miners really from across many different disciplines that Mary Washington.

This slide just highlights some of our faculty. We have 8 full time faculty. The two newest members are actually listed at the top. This is an alphabetical listing. However, it just so happens their names or early in the alphabet.

Tyler Frankel and Pam growth are our two newest members. They've both been with us for about 2 years. Tyler is actually a biologist by training and his specialty is in environmental toxicology, so he's got a lot of really cool projects going on, and he's developed some new courses for our program that I can talk about as well. And Pam growth is fairly new as well. She's a paleoclimatology specialist and she's developed a couple of new courses that are very exciting for our program as well.

I'm 3rd on the list an I'm chair of the program.

I've been here for four years, although I've actually been at Mary Washington since 1993.

And then my colleagues Ben and Sera. Sera Morelli is a senior lecturer. She is our lab coordinator on the geology side of things, and as all of our lab setups.

Melanie shall Chesky is one of our more policy oriented folks. She actually has a PhD in science and soil science, but she's very passionate about the environment and sustainability, and she really developed our sustainability minor and serves on the president's Council on environmental sustainability. And she has developed, uh, of course, that takes students to South Africa. So I'll say a little bit more about that as well.

Join tip, it is an adjunct of ours, but he is a longstanding adjunct. He's actually been teaching with us, I think, for about 8 years, and he is very well trained, has a Masters from Duke University, which is really a wonderful environmental programme. Ana specialty in watershed management. He is the former director of the friends of the Rappahannock River advocacy group and he teaches during the day for us actually. So he's not in night time adjunct.

But he teaches intro courses as well as upper level. In fact, he teaches our senior seminar for environmental science majors and students just love him. He's.

He's a real asset to our program.

And then the last two on the list Chuck with Kian Grantwood. Well Chuck is a hydrologist, angio chemist by training and then Grantwood. Well is also the associate Dean for the College of Arts and Sciences which is very good and kind of keeps us in the know with the administrative matters and he teaches a GIS class so all of our majors require a GIS class and I can answer questions about that if you have any.

Let me just quickly show you some of our courses. These are lower level offerings in the program, so our department's code is ESC for earth and environmental Sciences, and we have. These are just the 100 and 200 level courses, so we do teach 2F sounds, one of which is an honors. I've tried to flag in pale blue here. General education requirements and some of our courses that satisfy those requirements.

The 1:10 and 1:20 courses. These are the new titles and I'm just mentioning that because if you looked at our website or if you looked at the excuse me academic catalog which is available online, you would see different titles. We've retitled them.

In the second semester course, the spring course has a lab, so the lab courses on this slide or flagged with an asterisk.

The one 11112 and 121 or a little bit more geological in focus and I did not put natural science on here since I figured most of you were interested in a science major. But many of these courses, the 1:20 the 111, the one 12 in the 121, would satisfy the new general education requirements. The natural science requirement, the 2:05 courses digital intensive, which is a new general education requirement. There are no prerequisites for that class.

And it's a GIS class, so it's I can certainly tell you more about GIS. If you have questions, but basically I just tell students that GIS equals jobs because that is kind of the wave of the future and you'd be very hard pressed in Environmental Science and geology to get a job without basic GIS skills.

The 2:30 global environmental problems satisfies the general education diverse and global perspectives and that is, of course, that is taught, for example, by our adjunct John Tippett.

And then our field methods is a wonderful course. It's a for credit lab based course that gets students out in the field, gaining some more experience.

Here are some of our upper level offerings. Kind of a long list here, so I'm not going to go through all of them in detail. They are in numerical order. The ones that have an asterisk are those that have labs associated with them, and then I have flagged those that are writing intensive or speaking intensive or both and at the bottom you will see some more individualized experience. Types, of course is independent research, honors, research internships. We do let internships count in the major so students can do off campus.

Internships and count up to three credits in the major and these sorts of courses at the bottom. Those three there also satisfy the general education. What is now called beyond the classroom. So In other words, the point I'm trying to make is that through the major.

It's really quite flexible. You could get the bulk of your writing intensive speaking intensive digital intensive diverse in global perspectives beyond the classroom. A lot of these experiences or general education requirements can be fulfilled in the major, and even the minor on many of these courses count in our minor as well. Let's see how soon.

Oh, how many students would you say are typically enrolled in a given class? It depends if it's lab based or not at the lower level. Let me go back, actually.

Here, so at the lower level are 110 course is does not have a lab. It's a three credit non lab course and so our faculty teach double sections combined and that's one of our biggest classes that would be about 60 students in a course in class together.

The lab based courses we typically teach a double section, sometimes a single, but typically a double section, so the 1:20 the 111, the one 12 in the 121 would have 40 eight students in class and then the labs are separate and there are 20 four students maximum in a lab and one of the things that I think is fairly unique about Mary Washington is that faculty teach all the labs we don't have teaching assistance and then at the upper level, let me go back here.

Whoops here at the upper level, it really varies. Some of our courses, I would say have 8 to 10 students and then some have maybe a maximum of 20. Kind of depending on whether it's a for credit lab based course. If it's writing intensive or speaking intensive, and it's a lab based course like the 421, the sources, fates, and effects of toxic contaminants that courses typically capped at 16 because it's.

Speaking intensive and it's a lab based course, so I would say typically 12 to 18 students in an upper level majors course.

So good question. I'm trying to keep an eye on those coming in. I so let me know if you have other questions about these individualized experience courses.

OK good alright we also have some beyond the classroom courses that are study abroad and this is where some of our newer faculty have really developed some exciting opportunities. What you're seeing here is our SA course, developed by Melanie Shall chesky, who has been with us for awhile. She's not a new faculty member, but the course is ESC 360 C. If you looked in our catalog you would just see 360 as a general code called environmental exploration. But what it really means is.

Field based courses that are often study abroad and this wouldn't go excuse me goes to South Africa every two years or every other year over winter break they spend about two weeks in South Africa and then students come back and follow up in the spring with the classroom component of the course. So it's a four credit course that has a two week field component and you can see students at the capes. Sorry.

At the Cape of Good Hope there as well to trigger happy there, sorry.

What I wanted to show next was this course. Here is another beyond the classroom study abroad course developed by Pam Growth, who is a fairly new colleague that has been with us for about two years. In this course, students go to Bonaire in the Caribbean and for a somewhat exstrophy about $800. I think they can get coral restoration certification and get certified in scuba diving and so you can see that in the middle.

Images their students are actually underwater scuba diving, working on restoring coral reefs, and so it's really exciting opportunity for our students and then doctor growth is there in the upper left.

So this is another one of our study abroad courses that counts both in the major as well As for the general education beyond the classroom.

And again, this is a spring course. Students. In this particular case, it's a spring course and students meet throughout the bulk of the semester, and then it's a week long trip over spring break.

Let's see this one here is to the Florida Everglades. This was initially developed by Melanie Shell Chesky and Chuck wiki together and you can see the students here going on a canoe trip and then just kind of a group photo.

As well, this course is not been run terribly recently because the Melanie's been doing the South Africa course, but I know she hopes to revive the Florida Everglades one.

Yeah, let's see this slide here. Just emphasizes local field sites that students have been to our newest hire. Doctor Tyler Frankel is on the left image in the Orange shirt and overalls and his three students Katy Perry and been or current students doing research with him and two of them are casting a net in the upper image there.

And then in the lower image doctor Ben Casella with one of our I would say star students who graduated about Seven years ago. At least Clark was actually a double major in Environmental Science and geology and also a little bit more about her. At the end. She's now an assistant professor.

At another University.

So we have a very active research programs for students that want to get involved.

This slide here just emphasizes some of the research that students have done. The students are flagged in gold as well as with an asterisk and then the faculty are in blue, so you can see that students have been first authors on many of these publications. Some of them are actually Journal publications like the first one, a Taylor Cox in a graduated a number of years ago, but she worked with my colleague Ben Casella.

Who also goes by Ben Odhiambo, his Canyon, and so the name seems to change around a little bit. And then Leanna John Carlo is a chemistry faculty. And then um, if you go down let's see, Andrea more is about midway down there. She was. The one that you saw previously on site at Christmas Island and Grace Real and again with Leanna.

John Carlo and then Tyler Frankel is way at the bottom. So I just kind of picked some fairly recent presentations and publications to highlight here and just emphasize that students I think one of the unique things about Mary Washington is that for high achieving students that want to get involved in research, they can and they have access to all of our equipment and frequently present at both regional and national conferences with our faculty. And often our first author.

Not only in the presentations, of course, but also on the actual publications as well.

This next slide shows one of our sustainability miners, who is actually a biology major Lauren Shard EA who was the runner up at a geological conference. This is the annual or national Geological Society of America conference last fall last September in Phoenix, AZ. So even though she was a biology major she was Co advised by my colleague Ben Casella and then fairly new colleague Joe on Touhy in the biology program and you can see the title of her presentation there.

So really Ben Casella was her primary advisor, even though she's a biology major she's doing are minor and then Matricaria, who's referenced in the lower right? There was a graduate of ours from the archaeology program from a number of years ago, and he still actively collaborates with Ben Casella, and he helped advised Lawrence project as well.

At this slide, shows are Mary Hoffman on the left and been drawing on the right. They are both students working currently. Other graduating this spring.

And they both are have worked with doctor Tyler Frankel, our latest higher as well as Ben Casella and they presented at this toxicological conference in West Virginia last year, and they were actually set to present this spring. But of course, with the coded situation they were not able to go, so they were going to present additional research and we had to pair. But that back, unfortunately.

This slide just emphasizes how well funded we are. The $100,000 plus figure that you see there is solely for undergraduate research. That's not faculty research. Faculty have a separate pot of money that they apply for. So every year, uh, students can apply for research funding to do field work. It for laboratory analysis. If we don't have the right equipment, we can send samples off site to be analyzed. Travel for conferences.

Hotel conference registration.

Travel to get to the conferences. That's all typically covered. We don't expect students to pay for those sorts of things, and you can see some of our instrumentation there. We do have a 22 foot center console research boat as well as some smaller Jon boats. I guess they're called, and then you can see in the lower left there we have a variety of types of electron microscopes. The One I featured there was straight back. The scanning electron microscope would be most used.

Help fight researchers in my Department, but there there is a transmission electron microscope and a tunneling electron microscope as well. The I CPS that's referenced. There is a technology inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy. What that's used for is to analyze water samples and I believe soil when it's been digested in acids. You can get soil chemistry as well, so a lot of cool technology. Yeah, let's see. Can you address the new science lab facilities available to environmental science majors?

Absolutely. So. Jefferson just had a new addition put on. I've got back. That's my next slide, I think. Yeah, we go ahead and click ahead what you can see in the upper right image. Here is the. That's pretty much that whole image is the addition to Jepsen. The existing Jepsen is kind of in the background and you can't really see it there, so this is a three story addition. The original Jepsen is about 80,000 square feet.

And the addition is an additional 40,000 square feet. So we added about 50% to the original size of Jefferson and my Department, ESC completely moved into the new edition. In fact, we take up the bulk of the lowest level and the mid levels there. So basically every faculty member got a brand new lab like what you see pictured in the lower right. This is doctor Shell Chesky's lab before she unpacked. So it's very exciting.

This is before she had packed. It doesn't look quite that nice and neat anymore, but it's full of stuff with students working in there, or at least they were until we had to go towards remote instruction. So pretty much every faculty member has a similar lab to this, which means that before in, the old Jepsen will the existing Jepsen.

We had very little space for student research and I won't go into the history of that. It goes back to when the building was first built and our Department was just being formed in its current iteration, which is to say that geology and Environmental Science had just come together when that building was being planned, so we didn't fare so well in the space allocations we got the most space per capita per program in this new base of the Jepsen Edition. So yeah, like I said, we have brand new classrooms we have knew.

Laboratory facilities we have boats. We have coring devices, we have Nets and sieves and all all sorts of field equipment.

The type the title I should say of this slide, which is our summer Science Institute, just emphasizes that we don't just conduct research throughout the regular school year. We have a summer science research program as well. Its consists of teams of faculty and students, ten teams, a single team would be one faculty member and two students, and there's a lot of Co curricular, team building fun activities as well. But it runs for the entire 10 weeks of both of our summer sessions.

Our students that participate get room and board provided if they want. If they live off campus, they don't have to make use of that. They also get a stipend. I believe the current rate is $3000.00, so that's a salary that the students can use however they wish, and each research team has. I think each student has $1000 for research funds as well to support field work and.

Sample analysis and then conference travel would really be separate, so typically students that do this summer research would then ideally follow up. This would be for rising seniors or juniors. Actually even sophomores have participated and then the following year of students continue their research. They can still apply for research funds to go to conferences and continue the research. So the dollar figures that I've quoted here are really just to support the summer part of the program, and there's a symposium in late July that culminates with students either giving poster presentations.

Or oral presentations. I think it's kind of their choice of their research results and their awards, and it's competitive and stuff. So the photograph there in the lower left are two of our students working with Ben and Tyler Spencer and bin, and they're getting the boat ready to go out and do some sampling.

So if I haven't answered your questions adequately, please type in some more. What I'm going to show you next are some success stories of some of our graduates and what they're doing now. And you know what their majors were when they were with us and so forth, but I'm still happy to answer questions. This outcomes slide is for our geology side of things, a grace real in the upper right was a geology major who's now employed in the DC area with the soil consulting firm.

Matt Ricker, who I mentioned earlier in the upper left, is now an assistant professor at NC State. He got a geology degree back in 06 from us. Katie Benes in the lower left was also a geology major. And then she went to you and Casey in Missouri to do a Masters in Vulcanology and is now back on the East Coast as a data researcher with this Smithsonian.

Uhm, yeah. So the question is, what classes would be best for someone looking at becoming a soil scientist? Well, obviously soils we do have a soils class that Ben Casella teaches and that would certainly be a highlight and chemistry. So for the Environmental Science major, all environmental science majors do a year and a half of chemistry minimum. That's the requirement. You can of course take more, so you would have a year and a half of chemistry under your belt. You would definitely want to do our soils class.

I would recommend hydrology as well because in the environmental consulting a sector which is where you might end up employed if you want to be employed rather than go to grad school, for example, contaminants are transported by either wind or water, and so groundwater is very important. And of course it percolates through soils, so we actually have Melanie Shell. Chesky is a PhD soil scientists from Madison, WI and then Bend Casella, who actually teaches our soils class, has a strong background in soils as well, so they would be very good faculty.

To consult with as well, and if if I'm not able to answer your detailed questions about other coursework or research opportunities or anything, you can certainly email me at the end of the day after the presentation as well, and I can forward your emails to other faculty.

But certainly our soils class and some chemistry courses in Hydrology would be good, um.

Let's see, Uh, Yeah. Tyler Frankel developed a environmental toxicology course. I should mention, because I didn't say this back when I was showing you the list of our upper level courses in his upper level environmental toxicology course. Although the title is different. Tyler Frankel has students use toxicological assays that are approved by the EPA, so that's part of what students do in the lab portion of the course. Is they get trained in the protocol that's actually used by the EPA?

So it's fairly applied in that regard in the training is certainly very relevant.

And translates immediately into the workforce.

And then finally in the lower right here of this slide, Emma Duncan was an environmental geology major who is working with data analytics firm in the DC area.

Are some of our environmental science majors Maura Slocombe in the upper right is currently a soil biogeochemistry. pH D students at the University of Pennsylvania. She graduated about four years ago. At least Clark. Of course, one of our strongest students ever was a double major in Environmental Science and geology and is now an assistant professor at Fitchburg state. She completed her PhD at Virginia Tech within the last few years and then David is working as an environmental engineer.

In Northern Virginia.

And finally my last slide before I attempt to show you a video that highlights are spaces. Further is I just kind of a summary slide as to what some of the things I think make us unique, say from other institutions. And certainly the focus on instruction and high quality instruction I think is a very top priority for Mary Washington. A lot of people refer to us as a teaching school, meaning that are focuses on teaching. So when faculty go up for promotion and tenure.

We are evaluated most stringently on our teaching record. Having said that, there's a lot of research going on as well. Alot of exciting research, but all of our classes, including our labs, are taught by faculty. As I said before, we don't have graduate students. We might have lab aids helping and assisting us, but we do all the grading. We do all the instruction the main instruction were always there in the labs, helping students an our class sizes are the range is really quite variable, but I think on the whole quite quite small.

Especially at the upper level, we have a lot of exciting field opportunities both here and abroad.

And the Mary Washington ciee or Center for international education. If you go to the MW website and you just type in Center for international education, you can get access to our study abroad web pages that highlight all the programs where we have partnerships. And it's it's almost overwhelming. There's so many opportunities, it's really exciting. And of course, the close interaction with faculty. This is what we do. Faculty that are at Mary Washington. We're here because we enjoy working with students. We love teaching.

And doing research with students in it. It's really been a bummer with this remote, you know, most of us we do online teaching and some of us do it in the summer, but it's not our passion, you know, we really enjoyed being in the classroom with students, and so it's been **** ** the faculty as well. Not being able to see our students in cursive.

All of our research is geared towards undergraduates. As I said, We don't have graduate students in my program. There is a graduate education.

A graduate programs in the College of Education. The College of business and there is a Masters of GIS taught through geography. But in my Department, in most of the programs we are undergraduate only, which means that all of the equipment, all of the facilities, all the time and attention is really devoted to the training of undergraduates.

And finally, our great location internships increasingly are a really good foot in the door for getting a job post graduation, which is very important, and I think sometimes people think oh liberal arts. What is that really going to do for me? Well, it's going to train you broadly in critical thinking and writing and speaking well and.

In the Sciences, a great science background. In addition, but our location being an hour South of DC an hour North of Richmond were less than an hour from Dalgren OK hour and a half to Charlottesville, so I think we have one of the best locations in the state for students. At least that have the ability to drive to an internship. It's really critical it certain increasingly becoming really important for getting jobs an I would say about a third of our students do internships and count them in the major.

Which is a great way to count elective credits in the major and satisfied that beyond the classroom experience as well. And this is just my colleague Chuck Wiki who's kind of a goofball.

And he's trying to have been into a box during the Jepsen move, so I thought we should end on a note of levity given this current chobits situation. Check is kind of a jokester, but he's a lot of fun.

And that's the last slide I had. I do have a video that my colleague in biology shot that I'm going to try to show you which highlights some of the addition to Jepsen and some of those spaces. Let's see, does the here's a question that came in. Does the Mary Washington Environmental Science Program have a joint agreement with the George Mason or Smithsonian Institute Animal Research Center?

I believe through biology there is a program with the Smithsonian. In fact, I'm fairly confident that the conservation biology major has an agreement with the Smithsonian.

My colleague Melanie Shall Cheskey was at George Mason for a number of years in their New Century College, and so she has a lot of ties there still. So my Department does not specifically have.

Agreements, as far as I know with George Mason or the Smithsonian. Although we have relationships with them, but a lot of our environmental science majors take biology courses as electives and there's a lot of collaborative research that goes on between biology and chemistry and my program. So even if you were an environmental science major, you could probably participate in a program like that in terms of it internship, and I will point out that the beyond the classroom.

Requirement is actually a general education requirement. It's just that you can also count those credits in the major in my program.

So there are a lot of agreements, transfer partnerships and agreements like what you're talking about that are in the works and have been developed recently, including with business an engineering, physics and engineering and George Mason. But currently my Department does not have an agreement like what you're talking about. Yeah, and I know someone had sent in. I'm not sure if there a participant or not. Somebody had sent in a question about an interest in marine biology and what sort of opportunities might be for them.

We've had students before interested in Marine Ecology and marine biology. We don't have a program for saying that because it's kind of a niche specialty, but I would say that regardless of where you go, there's a certain set of background basic courses that students need to take to be well trained and ready to do. Graduate programs in those fields, for example. So all of our environmental science majors have a minimum of a year and a half of biology. The natural track actually has two years.

A year and a half of chemistry a year of intro to Environmental Science. A semester of physical geology, a GIS class and then some of our students that are interested in marine ecology have gone in a done experiences in the summer, down at gyms, and they've transferred those credits. We've had students to study abroad in Australia. Several students have done that, and they've transferred major courses back in his chair. It's the chairs of the department's in the Department that approved the transferability of major courses.

So students have taken marine ecology in Australia, for example, and that gets transferred back not only as a major elective, but in that particular case for the natural track of our science, Environmental Science natural track major. That's a major requirement in several students have gotten major core requirement credits that they've transferred in in that way, so you can always take summer experience courses at other institutions and transfer them back. and I realize that can take extra money.

If you want to go to a place like Australia, but certainly in Virginia with how coastal we RODU and Vinz and so forth.

Some of my colleagues have a lot of good Contacts. I'm a Hard Rock geologist, so that's kind of far outside my area of specialty. But if you have particular questions, as I mentioned before, anybody can email me. My email is just JHAYOB at umw.edu and I can certainly forward your email to some of the biology folks or my colleagues and they can try to follow up on your questions as well.

So keep sending questions if you have them, I'm going to.

I don't know if you can hear her.

Signs.

Science Center

Adam or somebody. I'm not sure if you guys can hear my colleague Lynn Lewis. If somebody could let me know.

I hear her you can't help downstairs.

Computer.

Today

This is the connector between the two.

Ask is the joint between the existing part of Jackson and the new kind of jump. Since I just crossed was renovated into new Jackson. Let's go take a look at one of our new classrooms.

This is one of our new 50%.

Classrooms so it's designed for double sections of classes.

The Rock and Stone laid out so the students at the.

That should be in front of them can actually work together. You can turn the chairs around and work together.

250 person classrooms. This is our second one. This one has been designated as an active learning classroom because we have computer monitors and big boards around the rails of the different groups can be working on different things.

Justin Science Center, Jacksonville had written it does hold 100 people and then we typically don't teach classes with having people in the air over to have presentations. There's another screen that can stand in the front that much linguistically can use, which is basically a computer. Kindness to all students in the building. In fact, it's from campus and occasionally we will teach classes in the air, moving in 20 four people at the computer, all at the same time. We do want something laptop current that we use in other classes with fewer than stuff.

Teen students

The building inside.

Additionally, this is what we call our third floor interaction area. So in this space with garment period for students to hang out and just mangled, we've got a couple of different computer stations in here of the modular, students could connect their own computers without a label writer. Here, sister disc. In Europe there is problems together.

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Well, that was Lynn Lewis, Chair of the biology program who very graciously and very kindly, went in videoed some of our spaces, and pretty much everything you just saw was ESC, or a general classroom. And then that last space there, like she said, was also joint space between biology and earth and environmental Sciences. And there were even some additional rooms back off of that field storage site that you couldn't see. We have a big cold room where we store core samples that need to be refrigerated. It's a huge walk in.

Refrigerator basically and we have another small field room back there where we have a rock saw where we cut slabs of rock and things like that. So I'm glad you guys could hear her. I wasn't sure about that.

That kind of ends the formal part of the presentation. I said I was willing to stay until 7:00 or even 7:15 if folks still had questions. So you're welcome to Lagaf. If you've got somewhere where you need to be. But if you have questions, you can continue to send them to me and I will sit here and answer them as best I can, as long as you have questions.

But I thank you for participating and again please.

Follow up with an email or if you go to the umw website and you click on academics and then majors, minors and programs, you can find all of the majors and you can get access to my department's website there and there's a complete list. Of course, is an faculty and projects and so forth. We have our own Department of website that highlights a lot of things that we're doing currently.

So it's been a pleasure chatting with you guys even though I can't hear you. Uhm, I can read your your questions. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

And I'll be happy to.

Happy to answer them.

OK, so the question is how would I go about getting an internship so typically students do internships in their junior or their senior year and the rationale behind not that you're prevented from doing it before then. It's just that typically you're more marketable to an agency if you have more coursework under your belt. So we have an office of Center for career and professional development. Is the new title, and they have an online platform called handshake and they work with students and helping them find internships. But we also have a lot of Contacts as well.

So there are local environmental consulting firms. There are local advocacy groups like friends of the Rappahannock, the local River group or regional advocacy group. I should say, and John Tippett obviously has some context there. We've had many students do internships there. We've had students do internships with the Tri County soil and water district. the United States Geological Survey up in Reston rolling and Robertson Dewberry. These are local private environmental consulting firms and so. Over the years we've developed Contacts, so between the eight faculty.

You know, we all kind of know different people.

And sometimes students find internships on their own, especially if they're out of state. They might say, well, I want to do this internship in the summer. Back in Connecticut we say that's fine, we just there's a contract that gets filled out. An agency supervisor that's on site fills out information about what the students going to be doing, and then there has to be a faculty supervisor. So one of the eight of us would supervise the experience and typically students are required to do things like keep a log or a Journal writer, reflective report, communicate with their advisor once every two weeks, either in person or by phone, or by email.

And to earn a particular amount of credit to get one credit, you have to have 42 contact hours. So a three credit internship would be what is at 120. Something contact hours total spread out over the semester so you don't have to do with three credit internship. You could do one or two and you could even do it. Pass fail. It's one of the few general education requirements that can be taken. Pass fail, you just can't count it in the major. If it's pass fail. So if you're just trying to check that General Education box.

Or you could go to one credit pass fail if you wished. You can do an internship in the regular school year. You don't have to do it in the summer, it's just when you do it in the summer. You do pay separately for the credits and so that's something to keep in mind, so there's a lot of options for finding internships, and I would say in this area with da grin and DC and Richmond and so forth, there's a lot of agencies out there looking for students, and we don't care if you get paid, you can be a paid internship. It could be unpaid.

That doesn't affect whether or not you get credit, or whether or not it counts in the major, so that's up to the agency to workout with the student.

And see another question is how many students on average graduate each year with an Environmental Science degree? It varies, it's unrelated up and down. I will say we actually have the second oldest environmental science program in the state. Not a lot of people know that, but we've had environmental science since about the late 60s. I think a colleague named Michael Bass retired a few years ago and he developed our program way back before being green with school. And so you VA has the oldest. We have the second oldest, so it's been around a long time.

As has our geology programs and.

On average, I would say we graduate 20 to 25 environmental science students each year, maybe a high of 30, maybe a low of 15, and that's between both tracks. The natural science track and the social science track. And for geology I would say it's between 5 and 10. Again, that varies quite a bit right now. I think we have a few more environmental geology majors then we do geology, but that's kind of going up and down as well. That program is smaller. The geology side of things is a little bit smaller.

I think in large part because geologists have kind of dropped the ball at the national level. I don't think a lot in high school, a lot of students necessarily really understand that geology is more than just rocks. It's not just rocks, it's climate change, its oceanography, its energy, resources, it's alternative energy resources. It's a whole exciting slew of things, so sometimes we get students switching from environmental science over to geology and vice versa. Students decide. Well, I really like the geology side of things. Biology is not really my thing.

And that's a major difference between the geology side in the Environmental Science side is that there's no biology required whatsoever on the geology side of things, and actually, only a year of chemistry, so.

Let's see do the code, but I didn't get to finish my AP environmental science class.

I don't think it would transfer if you didn't get to finish it. However, I have some colleagues with high school aged kids and they're still finishing their AP courses and they're working from home in studying and they're still planning to take the test exactly how they're doing that I don't know, but if you if you keep up with your AP Environmental Science class and you still take the test and you score, believe you have to score a four or better to actually get credit for RE SC110 cores.

You can earn credit. You could also just repeat it here, and that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing given not sure what kind of experience folks are having this spring term with the Cobit and having to go to remote instruction. That's kind of a personal choice, but I would say there's still a chance for you to get credit for that in. The best thing would probably be to reach out to your high school about the AP testing, and if that's still going to be offered.

So what is my favorite part of the overall subject of Environmental science? Either A to teach or learn about? Well, actually, I'm a Hard Rock geologist by training, so I would say my favorite part is everything. My biology background is pretty slim. Admittedly, I'm more of a chemistry background and it's Hard Rock mineralogy and igneous and metamorphic petrology. Although I have taught hydrology before as well, and I really enjoyed that, I was sad to give that up when we hired check wiki. I just really enjoy working with the students.

I think it's really refreshing to see a different crop of students each semester, but then also deceit. The existing students semester after semester for the three or four years that we get to have them in the program and to see all the cool things that they're doing with my colleagues is just really exciting. So I think just working with usually it's 18 to 22 year olds, but sometimes older students as well. It's just really a lot of fun. It kind of keeps you on your toes. Yeah, I did. If you guys could tell Wenlin Louis did that one.

That up video of the one lab that had the microscopes. I don't know if you could see but there were, like Eminem's on the lab table there that was a project that I had students doing where they were using different colored Eminem's to model A magma that was crystallising different minerals. And they had just laid out their project and fractionated there magma Chambers and collected all of their data before we had to go to remote instruction. And so nobody had a chance to even clean that up. So we still have all these pages with Eminem's and stuff out on the.

The lab tables in there, so I guess I have that to look forward to cleaning up in the fall when we resume face to face instruction.

Yeah.

Any mother other questions?

So.

Oh my email again. OK, it's JHAYOB at umw.edu.

And if you want to find our department's website, let me see. Let me go back if I see if I can go back, I think I had our our website.

Here, if you guys can still see the slides, the CA s.umw.edu/ES.

For Earth and environmental Sciences, that's our department's website.

So the question is, do to Cove it? do I think we will be opening on time? The plan is to open on time at the federal level. Doctor Fouchy. If you've been watching the news.

Has advised that we can't open up right away. Probably not this summer, but probably by August it's lucky. Late August. It's looking like we are planning to open in whole classes.

Like normal, obviously we have to monitor that situation. It's kind of fluid, but we've submitted our courses for the fall with the intent of being fully operational, but I can tell you that we are still having discussions for contingency plans.

To keep students and faculty safe and stuff so.

We are planning to open on time, move in dates in late August. Should be the normal regular ones, but we will have to keep our eye on the situation for sure.

And we're all thinking about the fall term and.

Yeah.

I mean, hopefully we won't see a resurgence of this soon, but we're developing contingency plans to keep the course is going and thinking about ways to accommodate remote instruction again, if it comes to that. So I think in this regard, Mary Washington is may be ahead of the curve in terms of our planning on campus. It's not necessarily out there in the public, because we're still deciding things, but we are having conversations about what to do if we start classes back up in the fall and then midway through, we have to go online again. And so.

I guess the good news is this was kind of a trial run and we have a better sense of how to do this. So there is a plan. We're working on plans. I know that's probably not very comforting. It's a really uncertain time for students and their families and not knowing you know, kind of what's going on. But we're doing the best we can, and I think you know all we can do is hope for the best and plan for the worst as they say. And yeah, we're planning to be there in the fall, so I hope we get to see all of you too.

And very welcome in answering all of your questions.

So the question is, do the classes utilized the Rappahannock River a lot? I would say a fair amount, yes. I typically take my mineralogy students down there to look at and petrology to look at the rocks in the minerals, and I know in.

The Fluvial Geo morphology or three 13 class my colleague Ben Casella has students down at the River doing things, and Tyler Frankel, the environmental toxicologist in terms of both coursework and research projects. Really, students go all over. It's not just the local River. It's Lake Anna Chincoteague, VA area and regional lakes and waterways are all being studied. Parts of the Chesapeake Bay as well. So even for.

Her Oceanography class. My colleague Pam growth I think is try to get students out on the boat. In smaller groups, you know, not all at once of course, but yeah, so yeah, we utilize the River as well as.

The whole region really, yeah.

So the question is, what is the biggest difference between pursuing geology or environmental science?

I will say, um, regardless of which major or pathway students take, the jobs that they end up getting if they go immediately into the working field are tend to be similar. The Environmental Science majors have a biology background that is just not part of the geology training, so all environmental science majors take the year of intro to environmental science, the 1:10 and 1:20 courses. They take a semester of physical geology.

They have to do a year and a half minimum of biology and a year and a half minimum of Chemistry. The natural track also requires 1/4 semester of biology. That slab based upper level.

On the social trackside, it's only three semesters of biology. But students do currently a year and a half of Economics. Although we might be changing some other things up a bit, they all do a GIS class.

On the geology side of things, the only course that crosses over that students are required to take is the physical geology. The 111 what we call our dynamic earth and then a GIS class. Those are the only two things that are actually in common between geology and environmental science. As far as the core requirements. Now there's a lot of electives that students take in both majors, or both sides of things. I should say hydrology, soils, fluvial Geo Morphology, a lot of those courses are taken by many of our students.

But the geology major requires things like mineralogy, petrology, which is the study of igneous and metamorphic processes, sedimentation in stratigraphy, structural geology, and then we do require a GIS class as well. Our environmental geology major is a little bit more focused on the surface processes, so soils and Hydrology are required in that major, whereas they are electives in the Strait geology major, so it really is just these different majors are intended to offer students flexibility.

In terms of kind of tailoring, the curriculum to their strengths in their interests, but it turns out a lot of the students that have taking a lot of the same courses and they kind of pick whichever major.

I guess sounds the best of them. I'm not sure, but.

It's meant to be flexible and we're increasing the flexibility all the time I will say, for those of you that are still hanging with me that are interested in Environmental Science.

Vulcanology would fall under the straight geology major, just a regular what we call geology major for sure. Like Katie Venice. Yeah, and she's someone you could put you in touch with and she can tell you all about her vulcanology field work and special summer program that she did that other students could do as well up in Alaska. I think it was.

I was going to say about the Environmental Science.

Oh, I know my colleagues are working to revise those majors and with the cobit situation and they just kind of had to put that on hold and so there are taking a fresh or look at our environmental science majors and probably going to be making some changes in the next two to three years. But the goal would be to make things even more flexible and to give students more choices and more options not to make it more onerous or anything so.

I think the changes would be exciting and of interest to students and things that they would like to see. The biggest thing, I think, is that there's just confusion about what does natural track versus social track mean and social track makes it sound like it's environmental studies and it's not. It's still a science major. It's a track or a major that's focused more for students. It might want to not be practicing as scientists, but maybe go into advocacy and policy side of things and so the electives for that major.

A lot of the choices there are from geography, sociology, political science, economics, and still within our program as well. Within EE sy, it's just more of the software social side of things. Social science side of things for the electives.

Some of them. Yeah philosophy, like environmental ethics.

Yeah, things like that.

So please feel free to email me with additional questions or questions for my colleagues. I can forward any special.

Questions that I have not been able to answer that you might have. I'd be happy to forward this on or try to answer them myself by email if you if you think of some additional questions that we haven't been able to address here.

And please do check out our website work were constantly updating it and modifying it and.

Making it more current.

Oh, you're quite welcome my pleasure. I sorry we can't do this in person. It's a little weird talking to a computer, right not hearing anything back so I have to keep looking down to see if you guys are typing in questions.

And of course my cat here in the background. This is Lizzy.

Decided to join us.

At least he's been quiet. Usually she's quite loud.

And if parents have any questions, I'd be happy to address those too. And you can also email me as well.

Oh great Chloe. Well hopefully you'll be seeing you at Mary Washington. Please come by and see the new Jepsen Science Center. It's it's really a lot of fun and meet. Meet us in person and come meet my new colleagues Pam and Tyler.

See, there are six of you still there. If you have more questions, you can feel free to send them my way.

OK, we're down to three.

Anymore questions.

I hope you all have a good weekend.

It's been a pleasure chatting with you.

You're welcome, Anya.

And Faith and Chloe.

And Rachel scrolling back through the names trying to see who all is still here.

Alright, is it just us? I'm not sure.

Oh, I see Chloe still there. Hi Chloe.

Can't wait to meet you in the fall.

You have a good weekend and stay safe.

Thank you Kelly and Adam for your help.

And if you have any commentary to follow up or suggestions for a future web and R, please don't hesitate to email me.

I really appreciate your technical help.

Alright, I think we might just be down to the three of us, I'm not sure.

OK Alright Thanks Adam. Thanks Kelly. Really appreciate you guys.

I wouldn't mind some feedback on how I did. Seriously, I'm really thick skinned. I can take it. This was very awkward. Speaking to a computer that doesn't talk back, so I I'd really appreciate any insights that you guys have, especially if I have. If I get to do this again so you guys have a good weekend, I really appreciate all your help. I guess to closeout. I just can probably close out the window.

Take care.

Oh, thank you. Please do email suggestions like if you couldn't hear me or if I was stumbling through my words or if anything wasn't clear. Not that you have to do it right away. I know you're probably busy, but yeah, I'd be curious to get some feedback. Have a good weekend guys. I'm going to go ahead and close out.