My first research

I spent some time surfing around on some of the "historical Ohio" stuff, looking up places I knew.

At "Summit Memories," I ran across the John F. Seiberling collection of photos. Seiberling was a US Representative in the 70s. Probably the best thing he did was to be instrumental in the founding of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park (then known as National Recreation Area, and it feels weird to me to write "National Park" about it).

Anyway, one of the photos is of Furnace Run. This was my first-ever research project: I was doing a Governor's Summer Institute for high school students (it may have been Gifted high school students, I don't remember). I was in the first run of it, partly done as a test run. (Yes, my dad was running the particular program I was in). What I did was collected water samples along various points of Furnace Run and analyzed them for chemical content. (That was what the other students did, but they did different tributaries of the Cuyahoga).

I remember using "Cubitainers" (an easy to carry flat-pack plastic thing that you could puff up into a cube and use to collect water) and carrying them all back (I think we had to add a tiny bit of acid to preserve conditions?). And then do analysis of the water- there was column chromatography, which was a little boring because it was so automated. We also did atomic absorption spectroscopy, with a really old-school machine, where you could see the flame (and my dad would open the door - with us all at a safe distance - to see how the atomization process worked) and where you had to change the lamps and the angle of the flame depending on what you were testing for. (It was cool because it was Science but also because it was Fire. And it was mildly dangerous but not horrifically dangerous, so....)

Anyway, we analyzed our samples and used a computer package to determine the water type, and then drew conclusions about what was going on. (Essentially: the water was more strongly characteristic of the bedrock in the area close to the source- most of these areas originated as springs)

Ultimately, I presented it at the Ohio Junior Academy of Science. I guess I must have really been scared because, scanning my memory, I don't remember that presentation, I just remember rehearsing it in the biology classroom at my high school. (Often, when I am very scared - and this was more common when I was younger - I do not remember the situation).

(We didn't do science fairs where I lived, so this was the closest thing to it).

But my favorite parts of the whole project were running all over the Metroparks looking for locations to sample, and also, the AA was kind of fun too....