A novel and interesting part of the AIP program is fulfilling a Leadership Challenge. This involves developing or taking on some kind of activity beyond your normal experience and then performing in a leadership capacity. For my leadership project, I had the amazing opportunity to co-lead a high school student group in ecology research and stewardship along the Coney Island Creek.

I was extraordinarily fortunate to have this opportunity. Although I started on the path of developing my own project from scratch—my original idea for a leadership challenge was to plan a citizen science workshop for urban waterways—as it turned out, the NY Aquarium had received a grant to launch an “Urban Naturalists Program” for a small set of local high schoolers. My advisor reached out to me to see if I was interested in being involved. The grant came about due to an incident I was aware of through my research—that a local housing development had been illegally dumping sewage into Coney Island Creek (Spivack, 2016). Fines issued to the housing development led to state grants.

I always have some mixed emotions if I’m given an opportunity versus developing something original. But perhaps this is silly. I had reached out previously and met with staff at the NY Aquarium to discuss some of my planned activities and goals, which seemed to match their thoughts about what activities they might organize under the grant. So perhaps one puts themselves in a position to receive an opportunity. In any event, I was still very grateful.

Of course, I still felt a ton of uncertainty. I had never taught a class before. I wasn’t sure I had the confidence to do it. In fact, my expectation was that I’d be awful and embarrassed. Again, I was lucky in that I was one of three co-leaders (talk about being eased into something!). My main role, as the co-leader most familiar with the history of the Creek, was to provide historical context for the ecological state of the Creek and what student research could help accomplish. As the class progressed, I actually learned to enjoy being a voice and guide. My co-leaders and I developed a nice chemistry, and I learned to relax and just feel comfortable. Essentially, I had to just live with the self-conscious voices in my head and rely on the hope that honestly conveying my own joy, curiosity, and wonder will reach those receptive to it. It’s OK to be a nerd, in a sense. Mostly, I learned a lot from my other co-leaders about ecology research and teaching. Looking ahead, I feel more confident now to do an activity like this again.

In this activity, I organized an environmental stewardship project—a beach cleanup along the shore of Coney Island Creek. I’ve actually organized some similar events before, mainly inland park cleanups. I wasn’t sure what kind of turn out I would be able to get, moreso because the class was not given a lot of time to prepare. So the main challenges were how to get the word out quickly and to what audience.

I am fortunate to belong to a community of local, Ultimate frisbee players, a number of whom like to also like to play a version of Ultimate on the beach. So through this community, I was able to get a few interested participants. Given the time allotted, it was a lesson in being flexible in a number of ways. I felt that I had to make do with whatever number of people I got to participate, and I also felt I had to be prepared for negative feedback, in case the project didn’t feel so organized. In other words, I would just have to roll with however the project went.

Overall though, it mostly turned out to be a positive experience. I had eager, knowledgeable participants who enjoyed the activity. Additionally, because I was interested in citizen science, I had everyone download the Ocean Conservancy’s CleanSwell app to log data on the trash we were collecting. Upon reflection, I wish I had developed some more advanced, investigative ideas around using this app. While the data collection turned out to be clear and informative, there were some mixed feelings about the app from the participants. Some of them felt that while collecting data with the app was interesting, it also slowed things down in terms of them wanting to see a really cleaned beach that they had contributed to. 

I think a better option would have been to separate out testing the efficacy of using the app in a more focused study. I wound up trying to do two things at once in a sort of trial and error manner. I believe we had many positive outcomes—some people weren't fully familiar with the site and they seemed to gain an appreciation for the Creek. And I came away with further confidence or self-assuredness by learning that none of their feedback was personal. In other words, the participants came to help and be good stewards and that was their own choice. Their feedback was about the app and making the experience better for next time.

It may be ironic that my short environmental stewardship project, where I didn’t have many participants, and those participants had some mixed feelings about the mobile app we used to log beach trash data, seemed to be my most promising option to use for this program’s requirement to submit an article for publication. I think I started out thinking I need to have a project with clear methods and significant results, as if to say “here I proved this!” But that’s not how science goes.

One of the things I liked about the AIP program from the beginning, is that, while it was stressed we had to exert our best efforts like in any graduate program, the program’s structure and philosophy of inquiry seemed to be more open to working out a research question, not necessarily having the exact right question and process from the beginning. This seemed more natural to me and more like when I worked at a museum and I’d interview scientists about their work. Many seemed to go through a process of thoughtful exploration or trial and error in their research.

Maybe that’s what my classmates and instructor picked up on when I suggested I might use this project for a submission. The project had outcomes I didn’t expect and I had lingering thoughts about how I’d organize things differently next time (as described earlier above). I guess that seemed interesting to others. And then as we each researched target venues for submission, I came across the journal Citizen Science: Theory and Practice, which has sections for “case studies.” So I fleshed out a longer manuscript about my stewardship project, detailing my beach clean-up-with-technology experience and resulting conclusions, as a potential case study. 

And then I did nothing for a long while. In other words, I chickened out submitting the manuscript, because … well, I’m not fully sure why. Feeling intimidated, thinking I’d improve the draft further? I don’t know. I’d written online blog posts, written exhibit graphics, and produced media that got displayed in a museum, and yet here I got so shy. I think it was still in my head that I didn’t create the original activity for the purpose of publishing so how could this be something worth publishing? But, as I’ve learned with other projects here, that’s not how things work. You have an experience, you can write about it, and then you put it out there. You learn from the process of putting things out there, you also get feedback that gives you better ideas for next time. In other words, you’re not really alone. A major theme of the whole AIP program is getting (and giving) honest, timely, and respectful peer feedback to learn from. I also got a great pep talk from Connie Malone, the AIP Graduate Services Manager, (after all, submission is required for graduation!).  

The rest of the story might round out well if I indeed got published, but I may have gotten something others don’t often get in the academic journal world either—immediate feedback! The editor-in-chief wrote back the day after my submission (I’ve attached our correspondence). My manuscript has shortcomings, of course, but I feel that I got honest, spot-on, and thoughtful insight into how I can improve my case study and, I think, what seemed like actual, honest interest in the topic I presented. I actually think I want to follow up!

After identifying my interests in local urban waterways, and how cities can be more connected to nature, I thought back to the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which affected many shoreline communities around New York City. For my class, Issues in Biodiversity, I researched and synthesized NYC’s plans for local shoreline protections. Did those plans include natural solutions and what, if any, would be the benefits? In fact, NYC’s reports at the time did list “living shorelines”—stabilizing shorelines with natural materials and plantings—as one protective solution to be considered. From my own separate line of inquiry, I learned living shorelines can also store carbon and restore the natural ecology for local aquatic life. I concluded that living shoreline methods should be considered as much as possible in any future plans, especially at Coney Island Creek.

Conducting this research was not an easy task when I started this research paper. I was overwhelmed in discovering that there had already been numerous community meetings and public outreach efforts on local shoreline resiliency. It was also confusing to navigate city government websites and determine if the resulting reports I found were “final.” It was not like locating academically-published journal articles and seeing they’ve been regularly cited or independently investigated. I felt overwhelmed in having to catch up on all these plans, news, and studies.

I also started out merely hoping that I would find relevance between natural systems and shorelines, but not knowing for sure whether I would. I did not really know about “living shorelines” until I dived deeper into research. It was a relief to see that there were connections. Nevertheless, I still felt apprehensive after concluding my synthesis—it just felt (and still does) that there’s so many ways to become involved in such issues and so little time to get involved. It’s great to know that other people are interested in the same ideas and outlook, but it may be a game of continual catch-up. Moving ahead, I think it’s just a characteristic of any project that one has to come to grips with. I can do my part, I can link up with others already doing work I’m interested in, and if it feels like a game of catch-up, well, you do the best you can. Hopefully, there is a community of like-minded people to rely on and work together with to ensure that city government maintains focus on solutions best for both people and the environment.

In this study, I compared and analyzed several years of Coney Island Creek bacterial sample data taken by two groups, the NYC Department of Environmental Protection and the volunteer-based NYC Water Trail Association. My data analysis showed significant differences in results between the two organizations. I later shared the results of my study with staff of the NY Seascape program at the NY Aquarium, which maintains relationships with both groups and conducts work dedicated to Coney Island Creek stewardship.

I was eager to do a study like this in order to provide some kind of meaningful data to groups working on the health of Coney Island Creek. I polled staff at the NY Seascape program and a member of the NYC Water offering some ideas to see what they thought would be useful and was excited that I even had a useful idea. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a personally stressful time. My Dad had fallen and required a hospital then nursing home stay and it was hard to focus on what I wanted to do with this project. The data was out there and readily available. I just couldn’t quite find time to approach it. I began to feel disappointed about my efforts towards the research and I ran a roller coaster of confidence levels from high to low in terms of what I was attempting to do.

Although I guess I had a valid personal excuse for delays, I think this experience reflects another aspect of my own personality. Sometimes, I need to feel like conditions are right, like all my pencils and notebooks are in order before I get familiar with a subject and then plan a methodical attack. In reality, this is never truly the case. Although I found some interesting results, I still feel regret, both that the study feels incomplete to me and that I didn’t have an internal conversation at some point saying ‘hey, the reality now is that I’m only going to have x amount of time today … what can I realistically focus on?’ I do want to revisit the study, mainly by taking rainfall conditions into account when comparing the two data sets (as they have an influence on bacterial conditions). But additionally, I need to use this experience in the future to simplify or adjust my approach, not only when other circumstances arise, but also to keep work progressing knowing that later revision and revisiting can be part of the process.

6. I had never taken a Bio 101 class during my undergraduate studies, so I was obligated to take the class Biology Through Inquiry to satisfy that requirement. Although I initially wanted to challenge this requirement based on my overall college transcript, I ultimately relented and was glad I took the course—there were many fun concepts to re-learn or understand in more depth. Better still, I put some hobby electronics experience of mine to use for a short inquiry project that I believe I tied to my master plan and personal goals.

   I recalled that when I started the AIP program, I really wanted to explore technology in the service of ecology work. Suddenly, it occured to me that I could program a small electronic microcontroller I already owned to perform some task. My device, a Circuit Playground Express built by Adafruit.com, houses a small accelerometer similar to one in a cell phone. And … professional research buoys house accelerometer sensors to measure the up-and-down motion and tilt of waves. Maybe, in theory, I could measure wave energy. Doing some research, others were trying to develop low cost ways to measure wave energy to make it more accessible for study (Figurski, Malone, Lacy, & Denny, 2011). After some waterproofing and some short tests, I was able to get the device to detect waves that I generated at home.

   Thinking back on my idea, I felt a little silly that I was generating waves (in my bathtub). And up until the last minute, I was undecided about what kind of quick class project I could devise. Even for a small project, you still have to mull ideas in advance and I didn’t feel that I had prepared enough. Was I fooling myself (and the class) that my experiment was even relevant? I definitely needed to evaluate the relevance of measuring wave energy to Coney Island Creek. In my paper on this project, I think I did—there’s a planned ferry service coming to Coney Island Creek; waves from boats can contribute to erosion or have other negative effects.

   I am, actually, eager to test my experiment out in a real world scenario. I don’t want to assume too much about its usefulness, but one thing I like about the AIP program is that it includes creativity among the scientific process in addition to inquiry and observation. Often, there is stress to work from a question or problem first. Sometimes though, I do think you can start with a technology or device and ask “is there an application for this?” as long as you then determine relevance with true sincerity. Given my experience with the Urban Naturalists Program, and that I saw other summer groups along the Creek trying out DIY submersibles to explore the Creek, maybe there is also relevance for students and educators to practice ecology research inexpensively.