Class Projects for integrating research and education:

Rice County, located in southern Minnesota is among the fastest growing counties in the state. It will not be too long before the county becomes part of the south metro of the twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. It is also one of the counties in the state that has rivers and lakes that are designated as wild and scenic. At the moment, few of the lakes and streams are threatened by pollutions, especially non-point source from agricultural practice.

As more land in the county is developed, the source of pollution will definitely change their forms, from agricultural to urban related pollutants. In order to monitor the lakes and streams in the county, students from my classes have been working on projects related to aspects of environmental geology of waters from streams, lakes and groundwater in Rice County and write final class projects at the end of each term.

In these projects, students collect water samples, analyze them using different tools such us Ion Chromatography, Atomic Absorption spectroscopy, tools that we have at the college and mass spectroscopy tools that we get to use by visiting other schools. At the moment, data collected is used to educate students on the potential of non-point source pollution problems with the watershed and help reduce these problems. Later on, I hope these results will be used with land-use planning in the county.

While doing these projects, my students gained tremendous knowledge on data collection, interpretation, and how to use different instruments. In this web page you will find reports on the chemistry of rainwater, groundwater, drinking water and surface waters from different part of the county.

Bereket Haileab
Summer 2006.