Six students have been chosen to receive the Andrew W. Mellon Grant, an award given to those interested in research experiences relating to environmental and natural resource topics. Pursuing a wide range of subjects, they will travel from Ecuador and Washington D.C. to San Francisco and South Africa.
This year's recipients are Karen Ast '01, Frank Black '00, Eric Bielke '01, Nicholas Dankers '01, Jaime Musnicki '01 and Rachel Richardson '01.
The poetry of the Bay
Richardson, a creative writing major, will travel to her San Francisco Bay Area home over the summer to combine her love of poetry with her interest in the geography and ecology of the place she was raised.
She will spend three weeks traveling through California, keeping a travel journal and visiting cultural and natural sites of importance, she said.
Following that experience, she plans on researching in museums and ecological organizations to learn about the history and environment of her home area.
"I want to let other people know how exciting a place this is that we live in," she said of the Bay Area.
Richardson will also research local authors and their relationships to the Bay Area.
"For writers, inspiration springs from the places we know best," her proposal reads. Her project plans to "explore that connection between place and identity, between location and writing."
Disappointed in what she says is Dartmouth's lack of connection between classes and departments, Richardson says she wants to introduce young people in the Bay Area to the idea of a cross-curriculum experience between geography, ecology and writing.
Commenting on the existence of a relationship between geography and self-identity, Richardson said that she would "probably learn a lot more about myself, about where I come from. It'll add a lot to myself -- so much of poetry is autobiographical."
The Soviet environment
Bielke plans on exploring environmental and economic degradation in the former Soviet Union. He says that the region is "severely plagued" because of a lack of conservative energy efficiency.
Researching for his project will be difficult, he says, because the reports of statistics agencies in Russia are not always accurate -- and are often missing.
Bielke will be doing his project from Pacific Northwest Laboratories in Washington D.C.
If the United States used Russian resources, Bielke says, not only could Russia's economy be strengthened, but the country could learn from the U.S.'s more energy-efficient industry.
It is a partnership he says will be difficult to forge, because of what he calls Russia's "national pride" in not accepting aid from foreign countries.
Bielke's project will culminate in a research article that he hopes will be published in the Pacific Northwest Journal, an economics and policy-based newsletter.
The article, he says, will develop into his senior thesis.
Bielke, an environmental studies major, hopes to win a Fulbright Grant and go on to study nuclear energy.
Animal interaction
Musnicki, an environmental and evolutionary biology major, will spend her summer living in the South Africa's Tembe Elephant Park, an establishment dedicated to the study and management of elephants.
A student on the 1999 Environmental Studies Foreign Study Project, Musnicki says improving the interaction between humans and wildlife will be her goal during her time abroad.
In addition, Musnicki will collect data on the social structure of elephants to bring back to Dartmouth. She will incorporate this research into an independent study project during her senior year.
"Lack of knowledge about an animal can only lead to conflict between humans and wildlife," Musnicki's proposal reads.
Musnicki says she will explore the possibility of a career in wildlife and park management, though she says that her interests are wide and she does not have her sights set on any single career path.
Lesser impact
Dankers is no stranger to traveling in the Canadian mountains.
His journeys in the area have made him aware of massive environmental degradation that has been caused by recreational activities.
"It's really in my desire to be a responsible traveler, to give something back," he says.
Dankers will live in the Cirque of the Unclimbables in the Northwest Territories and the Bugaboo Glacier Provincial Park in British Columbia with a friend.
He will combine his love of rock climbing and mountaineering with research on how to lessen the impact of hikers and guided expeditions in the area.
Dankers says that the problems he expects to encounter this summer have to do with personal safety, including the weather and the remote location where his project will take place.
"Bears are an issue up there," he said, grinning.
Dankers will give a slide show depicting his adventures in the fall and says that he is excited about what his summer holds for him.
"It's made this term tough to concentrate because I'm basically looking forward to busting out into the wilds," he said.
Other projects
Black will travel to Costa Rica and Ecuador, where he will conduct a carbon isotopic study of soils formed in each area.
The comparison will reveal contrasts in the agricultural practices of different civilizations in the two regions.
Ast, in a project similar to Musnicki's, will also go to the Tembe Elephant Park in South Africa.
Using a much different focus than Musnicki to examine the park, Ast will make policy recommendations to its administrators regarding whether or not to open corridors between other environmental parks within South Africa.
Neither Black nor Ast were available for comment.
