2018 BREE CWDD High School Students

The second cohort of the Basin Resilience to Extreme Events (BREE) high school research program had its training week at St. Michael’s College from June 18-22, 2018. The participants will continue to work on their research until the spring of 2019. They will sample streams near their schools and analyze their data to present at the 2019 Spring Research Symposium hosted by the CWDD. During orientation week, the teams learned about environmental concerns in the Lake Champlain Basin, BREE research, watershed model and stream table, water quality and macroinvertebrate fieldwork, identifying macroinvertebrate species, the macroinvertebrate phone application, data mining and analysis. Participants had the opportunity to explore the ECHO Science Center in Burlington as part of their orientation activities.
 
This year’s cohort has 17 teams, 4 of which are from schools in Puerto Rico, 5 from Massachusetts, and 8 from Vermont. The schools participating in the 2018-2019 BREE High School Program are: Academia Maria Reina (PR), Juan Ponce de Leon (PR), Pablo Colon Berdecia (PR), Specialty School of Fine Arts Ernesto Ramos Antonini (PR), East Boston (MA), Abbott Lawrence Academy (MA), Bellows Free Academy (VT), Champlain Valley Union (VT), Essex (VT), Long Trail (VT), Mount Mansfield Union (VT), Rice Memorial (VT). Four of the teachers are new, and the rest are returning teachers that have participated in the program at least once before, though most have participated at least 4 years.