Photos and captions by ACRC volunteer Brennen McCulloch. Brennen accompanied graduate students Kevin Fitzgerald and Lindsey Call conducting fieldwork at Juneau's Montana Creek in October 2022, to collect juvenile salmon as part of an effort to understand how nutrients move from streams out to the ocean and how salmon growth fares in changing stream conditions.
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This month, ACRC researchers traveled to Hilo, Hawai`i, to participate in a workshop for thePacific Islands-Alaska (PI-AK) collaboration, a unique joint effort by the Alaska and Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CASCs) exploring the effects of climate change on two distinct, but comparable, watershed ecosystems. Following a visit from PI-CASC researchers to Juneau in July 2022, Alaska scientists made their way south to observe stream research in Hawai`ian watersheds and compare methodologies for the cross-regional project.
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“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” – Confucius. My spring/summer internship with the Alaska Coastal Rainforest has been the very embodiment of that quote. Who would have thought that one brief exchange with my Earth and Environment lab professor, Jason Fellman, would lead to this wonderful opportunity. During the fall semester of 2021, I was standing in Montana Creek measuring water velocity with a classmate. Jason is nearby and I comment, “Man, this is the kind of stuff I’m here for, being out in the field.” “Really? You enjoy this?”, he asks, seemingly surprised to hear that about what seems like, and what many may consider, a mundane task. “Oh, for sure! I’d love to find a career being outside in the field, collecting data and analyzing samples.” Four months later, just before the start of the spring semester, I receive an email from Jason and professor of environmental science Eran Hood with an invitation: an internship assisting Emily Whitney, a research professional at ACRC, with laboratory tasks, downloading data from sensors installed in several streams around Juneau and preparing for the summer sampling season.
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My name is Naomi Boyles-Muehleck, and I am currently pursuing a B.S. in Biology from the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau. This summer, I had the opportunity to work as a research assistant at the Alaska Coastal Rainforest Center. Throughout the summer I participated in a project sampling drift from three streams along the Juneau road system. These three streams, Cowee Creek, Herbert River, and Peterson Creek, represent a gradient of glacial influence. The goal of the project was to gain insight into carbon fluxes and nutrient transport in temperate rainforest and glacially fed stream systems.
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Gunaaxoo-Alséix (Dry Bay-lower Alsek River)
My name is Connor Owens, and I’m an undergraduate student currently pursuing a B.S. in environmental science at UAS. This fall, I have been working as a science communications intern at the Alaska Coastal Rainforest Center. Throughout this internship so far, I have worked both remotely and in the field to help collect and summarize data and information, largely relating to Juneau's yearly glacial lake outburst floods from Suicide Basin.
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When COVID-19 brought normal operations at the Juneau Forestry Sciences Lab and the University of Alaska Southeast to a halt this spring, ACRC researchers were challenged to find safe, responsible ways to continue their work. The ability to carry out fieldwork to maintain long-standing datasets was a priority for many ongoing research projects. ACRC has contributed to datasets of stream water chemistry in the Juneau area since 2012, with monthly water samples and regular flow measurements collected through the summer.
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With the start of December, we can now say that the majority of our field activities have wrapped up for the year. Our regular water sampling has concluded for the year and stream sensors have been retrieved. We even had the company of some curious river otters as we pulled our sensor at Fish Creek. We had a great field and lab crew this summer. Over the course of the summer, the whole ACRC team participated in collected data (even Leah Gregg, our Admin specialist, joined in the fieldwork). A special thanks to our undergraduate student workers Liam Bogardus, Skye Hart, Connor Johnson, and Sol Martinez for their hard work collecting samples, taking measurements, and processing samples in the lab. This winter, I will continue to process and analyze samples. Stay tuned as we pull together data on water quality, stream chemistry, and streamflow from eight sites along the Juneau road system.
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My name is Skye and I am an undergraduate student in the environmental science program at UAS. This summer I had the opportunity to be a research assistant studying Suicide Basin, a glacier-dammed lake adjoining Mendenhall Glacier that has generated outburst floods regularly over the last decade. During this internship, I was able to join in on the field days where we would fly by helicopter to Suicide Basin, utilize image processing and digital mapping skills I learned from classes this past year at UAS, and get my commercial drone license.
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My name is Connor M. Johnson, and I’m currently pursuing a B.S. of Environmental Science at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau. The past two summers I’ve had the opportunity to engage in undergraduate research at the Alaska Coastal Rainforest Center. For those who don’t know, ACRC is a University/US Forest Service research collaboration where folks from both the Forest Service and the University join forces to conduct research.
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