by Rebecca Emerson '01
As most Mount Holyoke
students are beginning exams on campus, other MHC students, largely
juniors, are finishing semesters off campus--across the country and
around the globe. Samantha Williams '01 is currently completing the
Semester in Environmental Science Program at Marine Biological
Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
The geographical distance that
Massachusetts resident Williams trekked to attend the program only
spanned a state, however she has passed into a scientific world that
few undergraduates experience. MBL consists of a compound of
laboratories and serves as a base for numerous primary investigators,
postdoctoral researchers, and a diversity of programs. The Ecosystem
Center, one part of the MBL facilities, is the home of the Semester
in Environmental Science Program.
Williams, a biology major and politics
minor, was drawn to the program because of its strong environmental
component and her own curiosity about whether environmental science
might be her calling. The MBL experience has allowed her to have a
concentration of course work that stresses environmental perspectives
while she pursues her major in biology. She has also benefited from
working with full-time researchers who are pioneers in their fields.
In their teaching and interactions with each other, the Woods Hole
scientists have modeled the view that science is not exact and that
the interpretation of data can vary greatly. "They [the scientists]
sometimes share completely opposing views, and often have many
different ways to approach studying the same question," Williams
says.
The MBL focus is on broad-based
research revolving around the workings of entire ecosystems. Her MBL
work has demonstrated to Williams that "everything in science and
nature is linked; environmental problems caused locally have global
effects. We need to study entire ecosystems instead of one tree in
the forest. The climate, soil, water, bacteria, and nutrient cycling
must also be explored," she says.
With regular field samplings, the
students have spent many seaside days this semester. Williams recalls
attempting to catch fish at different levels of water depth for a
study in diversity and distribution. "Walking to the edge of the
water with our nets, we could see the fish below us as we collected
our samples to identify in the lab," she says. "I saw a school of
fish moving in absolute synchrony." Williams described the entire
schools' instantaneous shifts of direction as behavior that seemed
"collectively innate."
Mount Holyoke is one of thirty-six
institutions in a consortium from which MBL draws applicants. MHC has
sent a student to Woods Hole each semester since the MBL program
began three years ago. Tom Millette, associate professor of
geography, is the MHC coordinator for the program. According to
Millette, the intention of the program is to have world-class
scientists work with undergraduates in order to generate topnotch
researchers in ecology, in particular those who will use the
ecosystems approach.
Williams will soon journey further
from MHC, when she studies marine biology at the University of
Copenhagen in Denmark next semester. She anticipates a significant
transition from the small Cape Cod town where she now lives and works
with the seventeen other undergraduates to a city and university
setting. She will also move from the ecosystem approach to the
specific study of marine organisms. Williams is excited about this
opportunity, but expects to bring an ecosystems approach to her
studies and senior thesis when she returns to MHC in fall 2000. She
wants to continue environmental research, but in a setting where she
can meld work in science and the political ramifications of
scientific research.
![[Index]](../index3.gif){kind=small}