Airport arrival changes!

Parents and guardians meeting students at the airport: the flight from Pittsburgh, PA to Newark, NJ was delayed. Students will be arriving in Germany approximately one hour later than expected. The plane is arriving from MUNICH instead of Newark due to the flight changes.

We are hopeful that Lufthansa, and the students themselves, will contact parents and guardians to let them know of this change in arrival!

Day 11- Nine Mile Run

Today we went to Nine Mile Run and met with Lisa Brown. She told us all about the watershed, which she has worked on restoring. We learned how what happens on the land in this watershed affects water. The Nine Mile Run watershed is part of the larger Gulf of Mexico watershed. We walked around Frick Park and saw different areas. We saw wetlands, which the US government protects. Wetlands are important because they purify water. We also saw a sewage drainage spot. It smelled disgusting! The sewage overflows into the river when rain is received and the system is overpowered. Lisa Brown also told us about the results of restoration. Fish have come back and there are many species of birds. Then we picked up trash. We got quite a bit of trash. After picking up trash, we headed to Primanti Bros. for lunch. The sandwiches were huge and had coleslaw and french fries on. Some people really liked them, while others disliked them. After that, we headed back to campus. We went to Barnes and Nobles, a bookstore that also contains the campus store. People purchased various books and Duquesne University attire. Then we went over to the science building to look at the results of our Petri plates we did on Friday. We swabbed four different Petri plates each with water samples we collected last week. The different Petri dishes had different mediums that selectively allowed different types of bacteria to grow. We saw many types of bacteria. We had E. Coli, which was a glowing green color. Other bacteria were purple, clear, and various other colors. It was neat to see the results of what bacteria were present in our water samples. Today was a fun day.

Day 10- Shopping and Pool Party

We started off the day with breakfast at the dorms. Then we headed off to Ross Park Mall where we had time to shop. There were lots of shops. For the German students it was cool because they could go to shops not available in Germany. It was nice to have a day off. After the mall, we headed to Chris' house for dinner and a pool party. It was a delicious dinner! We enjoyed time swimming and talking. It was a fun day.

Day 9 – Falling Water and Ohipyle

Day 9 – Falling Water and Ohipyle

Our ninth day started really relaxed with breakfast at the dorm at 8:30. After breakfast we went to the cars and the two hour journey to falling water began. We had to wait some time in the beautiful visitor center after our arrival, and because of that the majority of us visited the museum shop and a small art gallery with some decent art for very indecent prices. My first impression of Falling Water was, that it looks much bigger when you see it from a large distance as when you’re standing in front of it. Our tour guide had a bunch of really interesting facts about the house. It was a weekend residence for a rich family from Pittsburgh, the Kaufmann family. Now it is managed by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, which also bought a big part of the forest around the house to preserve the landscape. The house itself is beautiful; Frank Loyd Wright had very good ideas and made some fine details. The house is built with only four materials, stone, steel, wood and glass. Most of the rooms are rectangular shaped and the height of them varies. It is very impressive which effects he made with some architectural techniques.

After our visit to Falling Water we went to the Ohiopyle State Park and enjoyed a two hour bike tour through the forest. The bikes were good and we reached nice speeds. When we brought our bikes back, we drunk the most of our drinks and started the journey back to the dorms. It turned out, that it will become a real journey, when the road which Megan wanted to take was closed. So we had to take a big detour and reached Eat’n’Park at nine. Luckily it were only six miles from there to the dorms, and it was quiet and dark at our floor at 11:30.

Day 8- Lab Day

Today we had a lab day. We went to the lab of Duqusne University. There we met Dr. Stols. Then we got in four groups. Two of the groups worked on the water samples from Murphy's Bottom and the other two worked on the water samples we got from the Kiski River on Wednesday. We were meant to do two experiments. For the first one we had to put some of the water onto four different petri dishes. They all had different chemical substances in them. After some days of waiting bacteria will have grown on the chemical substances. Then we can look which type of bacteria grows best on each of the petri dishes. One of the petri dishes was covered with a substance called LB. LB has got lots of glucose in it. So this chemical substance is especially good for heterotrophs. After that experiment we did another experiment. We wanted to extract the DNA from some of the microbes we found in the Kiski River and at Murphy's Bottom. We had to spin our samples a lot of times and we had to add different substances like lysis buffer or ethanol several times. In the end we had separated the DNA. In between we also listened to three presentations dealing with Climate Change and our Carbon footprint. After listening to the three presentations we calculated our individual carbon footprint. The average of the students would need four worlds if everyone continued to live the way the students live now. After finishing our lab day we had dinner at the University. Then we went to the dorms and blogged. It was another very interesting day.

Day 7- Murphy's Muddy Bottom

Today we headed down to Murphy's Bottom with Dr. Porter. We started out the day looking for salamanders in the creek. We had to turn over lots of rocks to look for them. We ended up finding 4 different species of salamanders out of a total of 9 species that have been found there. Dr. Porter said the previous night's rain may have made our searching difficult. Salamanders are an indicator of good water quality because they can only live in non-polluted areas of water. We also saw numerous fossils that were millions of years old. Some of the fossils were made from water washing over the rock and the item remaining instead of going away, which left the fossil. We also saw toads (American toad), crawfish, slugs, millipedes, and centipedes. We also learned a lot about plants, especially what poison ivy looks like. We learned about native plants. We learned that invasive species can come into an area and completely take over the land because they do not have any natural predators. This can make it nearly impossible for the native plants to survive. Dr. Porter explained how they are trying to restore native plants and are trying to eliminate some of the invasive species using various techniques such as herbicides. Sometimes, invasive species can be helpful. For example, one of the plants has berries in the fall that attract wildlife, such as black bears, to the area. There were also plants with interesting scents. The spice bush smelled like lemon and another one smelled nutty, kind of like peanut butter or Cheerios.

After lunch, we headed down to a lake that is only separated from the Allegheny River by a small band of trees. This lake should be connected to the Allegheny River within the next two years. This lake was made after gravel was removed to be used in products such as concrete. The place we stood would have been 35 feet underground before all this sediment was removed. We headed into the extremely muddy lake. Because it would be a huge, nearly impossible project to count all the plants found in the lake, we used quadrants to count the plants and get a representative sample of the plants found in the lake. We took two different samples from different locations. First, we roped off the area where we were going to count. Then, we picked all the plants in this area. Then we sorted the plants and put them in bags. We also took the core sample to get a sample of the mud. Under the water lilies, more nyas was growing because it requires less sunlight. The spread of plants illustrates a struggle for life that occurs within the 20-acre in diameter lake. The phosphate and nitrate cycles play an important role in the lake. We will work with these samples tomorrow in the lab.

The goal of connecting the lake to the river is to introduce new species into the lake. For example, the paddlefish was extirpated from Pennsylvania and could possibly be reintroduced. This would be an example of restoring a native species.

We all got extremely muddy today. We sunk in the mud. Some people got stuck in mud up to their hips. There were holes all over!

Day 6- Canoeing and Ice Cream

Today was our long canoe trip along the Kisky River. A professor from Duquesne University accompanied us and instructed us throughout the trip. We rode in a van down to the river and got in our canoes. We had to carry our lunches and other items in our canoe. We stopped periodically to collect samples of water, catch fish, and examine other plants and wildlife. The river seemed clean based on what we learned yesterday. We will use the samples in the laboratory this Friday. An interesting part of the trip was looking at the runoff from a mine compared to the water in an area without runoff. The runoff area was an orange color. We used seines to collect fish. Then we counted the number of each species we found and let the fish go. We saved some of the fish in a preservative. Most of the fish were small. They had various distinct features between the species. We also saw crawfish, various macro invertebrates, and salamanders. The rocks under the water were slippery and many people slipped into the water. Megan G. and Jen’s canoe tipped over, but unfortunately we did not see this happen, we only heard the laughs. The place where we stopped for lunch had a very steep shore and lots of people fell getting the canoes to shore. After our canoe trip, we dried off and headed over to Glen’s for ice cream. It was delicious! Today was a great day.

Day 5- RiverQuest Boat and Pool Party

We started off with another early day. We ate breakfast at the college and then went to the port where we took off on the River Quest boat. We did lots of fun activities like looking at plankton, finding macro invertebrates, testing water quality, and learning about river systems. The people were really friendly and informative. There were representatives from Bayer as well as photographers. A TV station came and that footage should be on the news tomorrow. Then we walked around the river and went to the River Quest offices. Then we went to Marisa's house for dinner and a pool party. The dinner was delicious and we were grateful to have a house to hang out at and relax. Today was a fun but tiring day.

Canoes & Coal Mines!

today was our 4th day at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. we had to get up at 7:15 to go to breakfast. we stayed at the breakfast cafe for about an hour then we went to the Southside to go canoeing along the Monongahela River. we got lessons on safety and rescue. then we got to go out on the water with a partner of our choice. we rowed upriver for about an hour then we went back downriver back to where we started. Megan, the leader, went to get pizza for us to eat and we all played 7 up and 4 corners. when we were all done eating, we went down to Tarentum to the tour-ed coal mine. we went down under the ground and we saw all of the coal and machines they use. it was very cold down there but it was neat. when we came out, we got little bags of coal to keep and then we went to the museum/gift shop and got free pop. we, then, had a discussion about the different sources of energy and which we think would work the best. we went to Walmart up at the Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills Mall. then we ate at Eat N' Park again but this was the one at the Galleria, too. that was all we did today. :)

Day 3- Baseball and Sun

We started off with another late breakfast in the dorms. Then we had time to work on the computers and relax. It was nice to get another day to sleep in. But, we have been warned that will change tomorrow! Next we headed off to watch the Pirates baseball. We walked over to the stadium. It was an extremely hot day, but it was nice to get to see the city. We were able to learn lots about the city. It was exciting to see this sport that many of us had not seen before. We had all you can eat seats, which meant we could get as many drinks, hot dogs, hamburgers, ice cream, peanuts, and popcorn as we could eat. It was very hot and sunny throughout the game. The game was the Pittsburgh Pirates versus the Houston Astros. It was nice to se the Pirates win in a shut-out (the final score was 9-0). There were some exciting plays. After the game we headed over to the Water Steps along the North Shore. Many of us got into the fountains while others of us just sat on the grass and relaxed. Then we made the long trek back to the dorms. We saw more of the city, including Fort Pitt. Back at the dorms we had an hour for much need relaxation and time to cool down after the heat. Next we went to Eat'n Park for dinner. It was a delicious dinner with lots of choices. However, few people could actually finish their dinner (all you can eat seats have a strange tendency of eliminating any hunger). We headed back to the dorms after dinner. We are excited for tomorrow when we will continue our adventure.

The Camp Starts!!! :)

Day 1

Travel Day

Our flight from Germany was 8 hours long but the time went quickly. We got to watch movies and the flight attendants were very nice and funny. Even though, the choice of food was limited, it tasted really nice and we all got enough. The flight landed in Canada so we had to switch flights. The security checks we had to pass were very strict. We even had to let our fingers be scanned. The next plane we got on to was really tiny, so we could see out of the window. This flight was 1 hour long, and then we landed in Pittsburgh. When we arrived at the University, we got our ID cards and our room keys. Our dorms are pretty well equipped and the rest of the campus of Duquesne University as well. When we got to our rooms we were very exhausted and went to bed.

Day 2

Getting to know Pittsburgh

At the beginning of the day, we had breakfast. It was a relaxing day. We got to know each other a little better and we went into the city. We went to Station Square and visited all of the shops. Most of them were fan shops. There was also a cute candy shop, a book store and a soap shop. There was a train, which drove around little kids and kept whistling. We went over the Smithfield Street Bridge. It is one of the oldest bridges in Pittsburgh. We loved the view of the city. We also visited PPG Place, which is a series of tall glass buildings and there was a fountain that children played in. Lunch was at the Hard Rock Café. A man danced Thriller by Michael Jackson. He was very talented. Sadly, we could not go on the Segway tours but we went to the movies and saw Despicable Me. We watched it in 3D. It was very funny. After the movie, some of us went to the super market, Giant Eagle, which was giant, as the name says. At the super market, we bought gum, chocolate, drinks and of course lip smacker. We liked it a lot.

Days 1-2

July 16 2010, at the airport we met up and then took two vans back to Vickory Hall at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. Some of us were hungry so we ordered pizza then went to bed, some of us after a long day of traveling.

July 17 2010, We woke up about 9 and had breakfast. We went down to the practice field and played a few games to learn each other’s names and “break the ice”. Then we took the vans down to Station Square to look around and shop a little. Then we walked across Smithfield St. Bridge and walked to PPG-a series of glass buildings with a fountain in the middle. We had dinner reservations at The Hard Rock Café at 3. The food was very good and one of the waiters danced and sang to Michael Jackson’s Thriller, it was entertaining. Then we were planning on going on a segway tour of the city but they didn’t have enough working segways and receivers so we decided to go see Despicable Me in HD. We had fun and it was a very entertaining movie. A few people went shopping, especially the German girls because they wanted to see what an American supermarket was like. The rest of us went back to the dorms and went to bed.

July 18 2010, we woke up early and ate breakfast while watching TV.

One week until camp starts!!

Greetings from RiverQuest in Pittsburgh, PA!

We are excitedly getting ready for the start of the 2010 Bayer Climate Fellows Sustainability Camp.

This international two week summer program is sponsored by Bayer Science and Education Foundation and Bayer USA Foundation. This blog will contain student writing from throughout the experience. We will post photos and a recap of each day on the site for everyone to enjoy.

Our adventurous international scientists will investigate human impacts on the environment and sustainability by using some of the rural and urban freshwater ecosystems you can find right here in Western Pennsylvania. Along the way we'll definitely have a lot of fun and adventure!

RiverQuest Bayer Camp Counselors