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Science Camp

Two HWS programs that take science to the pre-college level rely heavily on Seneca.

If, as a teacher, you were given the assignment of imbuing high school students with an understanding of the natural sciences, and this understanding needed to be broad and integrated, and it had to touch on both the technical and social levels of these sciences, and it had to have practical application in the real world, and — oh, did we mention you’d only have two weeks to get this done? To meet these goals, you’d almost have to go to Seneca Lake!

The Colleges’ Environmental Studies Summer Youth Institute has such goals. For two weeks each summer, roughly 35 students approaching their junior or senior years come to campus and undertake a unique regimen of field study to understand environmental issues. The program includes three days on the HWS William F. Scandling (formerly known as the HWS Explorer) and research elsewhere in the Seneca watershed (plus lab work and off-campus trips to the Adirondacks and elsewhere).

According to Institute Director Scott Brophy (an associate professor of philosophy), the lake is key, because it raises so many issues. "Curricularly, looking at the water quality of the lake allows us to look at a complicated network of things. . . .," he says. "When we look at temperature profiles, salinity, sediment cores, topographic profiles, etcetera, it tells us a lot about how the entire region has developed and what people have done."

The Institute’s approach is as interdisciplinary as any at HWS. All the natural sciences get involved, as well as a few social sciences. "Integrating all those sciences in that short a period of time is no small feat," Brophy says. "But the lake brings so much of it together.

On a smaller scale, the Colleges offer some of the same experiences to local high schools, through the Science on Seneca program. Whole classes of earth-science or biology, with their teachers (trained beforehand by the Colleges), spend a half-day on the HWS William F. Scandling, conducting some of the same analyses that geoscience undergrads might. The program is offered at no cost to the schools. Last year, about 300 students took part. — D.C.

The Seneca Lake series was researched and written by Dana Cooke and Peter Rolph '85 — writer/editors in the Office of College Relations. Portions of the series also appear in the Fall '97 issue of The Pulteney St. Survey. To request a copy, e-mail Susan Murad at murad@hws.edu.