The goal of our COVID-19 project is to measure air quality around New York City and the New England Area by using a new device known as an “air quality egg” near students’ homes https://airqualityegg.com/home. With such data, air quality can be compared in real time which leads to the brainstorming and creation of many smaller student-led research projects. We have successfully installed EGGs in two states, all five boroughs, and soon, two countries! Students will process their data and answer their own inquiry question. We will meet on Wednesdays through Google Meet and Gather.town. Students will assume leadership roles and manage the project. The younger students learn teamwork and leadership skills virtually. A new virtual reality platform called Gather.town will be used that visually demonstrates the MBRP classroom setting, such as including our main lab, garden, and green room. Gather.town helps us efficiently get into breakout groups that the facilitator and team leaders can travel between quickly. More detailed information on our data will be forthcoming. See the images below for a virtual image of MBRP lab120.
Team Updates
Team Air Benders
So far our group has gone over the basics of a peer review journal article and how to find a reliable one. Most of my group is composed of sophomore’s so we have a lot of fresh faces that are new to our procedures in the Marine Biology Research Program and SEALs. So we got to discuss finding accurate journal articles as well as things we wanted to implement going further a as team.
Team ConEd
Our team, ConEd, has come up with a rough question on how we can compare particulates in our air before and after the pandemic. We’re currently working on making the question more specific. We have been reviewing multiple peer review journal articles to get a better understanding on what particulate matter we want to focus on. We have seen in numerous articles that there has been a decline in air pollutants, like particulate Matter (PM).
Team Poseidon
Our question: How is the human body impacted by particulate matter and how do the effects differ between the 5 boroughs? What we have done so far: refine our question and get some peer reviewed articles. What we have planned: Looking further into peer reviewed journals, begin looking and testing data quality.
Team members:
Scholars: Kate, Marifer , Maddie, Sebastian, Dakota, Jaylen, Julia, Anna, Arlo, Dayanara, Aelish, Nicholas, Prophet
Facilitator: Mauricio (NYHS)
Technician: Natan (BMCC)
Industry Sponsor: ConEdison
Internship Host Organization: Hudson River Foundation
Post-Secondary Partner: BMCC
