I joined Dr. Wodzinski’s research team in the summer of 2021 and helped her with two research projects until the spring of 2022. One of the projects compares the effectiveness of an old and new stormwater pond. The other project aims to find methods to reduce phosphate and nitrate concentrations from agricultural runoff. I was fortunate enough to start researching with Dr. Wodzinski at the very beginning of her two projects. This meant that we did not have all the logistics figured out yet. Prior to the experimental part of the agricultural runoff project, we did some preliminary research regarding projects performed in the past, the treatment capacity of activated carbon, and the process required to test for phosphate and nitrate.

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The beginning phases of the agricultural runoff research project fulfilled Information Literacy 1-4.

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My research partner and I were first tasked with finding information that would help us start our project. Luckily, I had already taken HONR 401 and HONR 499, so I had previous experience with accessing credible information using databases. Much of the information we needed for this specific research project came from a database called Science Direct. When accessing an online report or article, the first thing that I checked for was that it was peer reviewed. After verifying credibility in this way, I quickly skimmed over the article to see if it could be applicable to the research project we would be performing. If I saw any key words that made it look like information would be useful for our purposes, I read the experimental procedure more closely. If I deemed the report worthy of using, I sent the article to Dr. Wodzinski so that she could site it in her research reports to ensure we were using the information in an ethical way.

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We were then able to use the information from other research experiments to help us with methods and quantities to use in our research. For example, we found the dosage of activated carbon to treat contaminated water in a project of similar scope. We scaled the ratio down to our smaller experiment size and were able to start with an appropriate amount of activated carbon for nutrient treatment. Had we not done preliminary research, we would have had to guess how much activated carbon to start with which would have wasted our time and resources. Because there were similar research reports online, we were able to find a reasonable starting point.

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I can apply this same process to my future career as an engineer when I start a new project. By looking at similar projects done in the past by my company or other companies, I will likely save myself time in because I won’t have to start the design from scratch.