During the summer of 2022, I was honored to receive an internship from the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. As an individual focused on ecology as a career path since my freshman year of high school, I was excited to get career experience with a large-scale organization working with freshwater ecology. What followed in the next few months was an experience that I could speak of for an hour without discussing everything I learned and experienced. As an individual growing up in the bituminous region of Pennsylvania, I've seen firsthand how the natural environment of the region has been affected by human use and alterations. Black Lick Crick, named for the coal that used to be washed into it, runs right below my childhood home. Whenever I had people ask me, "Why conservation?" it was easy to explain when they saw where I was molded growing up. With heavily polluted streams, surrounded by flood protection, it's easy to see how the landscape and ecosystem have changed. I believe two great issues are in the way of conserving Pennsylvania's natural environment. The first is regarding the salination and acid mine pollution that plagues the waterways. Due to the large minefields that inhabit the southwestern and northeastern regions of the state, there are thousands of miles of acid mine-drained streams that inhabit ecosystems and damage organisms. The solution to remediating these streams is to treat the polluted water as it leaves the source. This is no easy task. The EPA estimated in 2015 that the cost to treat all the acid pollution in the country is between twenty and fifty-four billion dollars. The battle against acid mine drainage is one fought on a site-by-site basis, with several groups contributing monetary, manpower or consulting assistance every year to remediate what is unfortunately a common problem. The second issue is the disappearing habitat for multiple organisms. Urban, or in some cases, borough sprawl is being seen more and more each passing year in the Commonwealth. At least once a year on a slow news day there's a story regarding wildlife entering urban areas and causing inconvenience or concern. This can be attributed to wildlife populations becoming stranded, dependent on human interaction, or having their habitat degraded due to poor upkeep. A main issue in the borough that houses my university is an area known as White's Woods. There is an unsustainable population of white-tailed deer currently residing in the woods, with debates on what should be done to help curtail it. There is a side that wishes for the population to be culled through hunting or relocation, with their opponents wishing to see the deer remain and for hunting to be kept away from the area. It's a concerning issue as it's a rare place nearby to be able to see wildlife, but the deer themselves have overbrowsed the habitat leading to stressed and starving deer, as well as individuals that have no fear of humans. A more statewide issue is how many of what sportsmen consider to be disappearing species like the ruffed grouse are directly linked to a loss of preferred habitat. Conserving a natural environment is not unfortunately a one-man show. Conservation itself can seem like a career that takes on a one step forward two steps back feeling at some points. However, it is when you can get a group of people together, who help educate individuals to help or support your mission, that conservation on a grand scale can be achieved.

I don't. Frankly, there's other people going to more expensive colleges that will apply that are more decorated and more sure of them getting it. My academic goals are to skate by with a 2.0 average, and my career goals are to be stuck in a dead end job, not in my field, and make less than needed to pay off my loans. I've never overcome an obstacle, I've always been boosted by others and their work. I've never been over an obstacle by my volition. I'd rather go back than go over.

When guests at my graduation party asked me why I chose my major, I liked to invite them to look around. During the COVID lockdown, my graduation party was held on my parent's property; A roughly 13-acre prior farmland in the heart of flood control in southwest Pennsylvania. When asked what interested me in Ecology, Conservation, and Evolutionary Biology I pointed out how I've grown and worked in the environment for the past 11, 12 years. While spending my days hunting, trapping, and fishing in the backwoods, I learned and appreciated the wildlife and ecosystems that make up my surroundings. While in high school I got to see firsthand how the environment can be damaged, seeing the effects of acid mine drainage on streams in Pennsylvania. It ignited a fire for me to help heal the environment in whatever way possible. Just by my sophomore year, I've seen how the management of resources can be a struggle, as often there's too much to do and not enough time/money/manpower to do it. I've also seen how willing citizens and landowners are to help scientists get the data and support they need to help ecosystems. While reducing carbon footprints from individuals, it's important to remember that the majority of emissions come from large corporations both domestically and abroad. However, individuals can stem their carbon footprint in a number of ways. One way is to help use natural ways to heat your home during the winter. Opening curtains or blinds during the day and allowing that warm sunlight into your home can help warm rooms in your house in a free and natural way. Also, utilizing barriers between rooms can help stem the movement of warmth from one room to another. Two examples from my house are my bedroom and my dining room. My bedroom is on the second floor, is insulated, and has two doors to two different rooms on each side. It is one of if not the warmest room in the house. Why? The door is opened maybe 20 times a day just for a few seconds to go in and out. That leaves the air supplied by the furnace nowhere to go except to stay in the room. Conversely, the dining room is on the first floor, not insulated, and has an open doorway to the kitchen on one side and two french doors on the other to the outside. Cold air has no trouble getting in, and more importantly, getting to the kitchen and the living room where the thermostat is located. This winter in an effort to reduce the furnace running and overheating my room I hung a blanket using tacks in the doorway on the side of the dining room. Even though it's not a thick blanket, and there's an opening at the bottom of the doorway the cold is kept in the dining room and causes the furnace to run less. Another option to help reduce your footprint is to eat less meat, especially red meat. The footprint left from the meat and dairy industries is massive due to the amount of energy, water, and land needed to raise and harvest the items. Agriculture ranks 5th in America's source of emissions. If we lower the demand for these items, we can help lower the supply and also the footprint.

Around 16,000 species are considered endangered by the IUCN. Around 1,300 of those are in the United States. One of them I'm very familiar with is the White Ash tree, which due to an invasive boring insect is considered critically endangered. Deforestation is a global concern with the risks of global warming and air pollution being issues of mass importance. While other trees can be planted White Ash are a great food source for tadpoles, and with other species of trees moving in frog populations and overall size are becoming smaller and smaller. This specific endangered species disappearing demonstrates how ecosystems are very interactive between species and how the loss of one can affect many others. The loss of species is a global concern because no matter what territory one travels to or is a citizen of, everything comes back to the environment of that area. I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania, where historically the two largest industries were logging and coal mining. I personally have ancestors that worked as coal miners and as lumbermen. While the coal mining industry has slowed in recent years, in 1988 twelve of the western Pennsylvania counties produced 179 million board feet, almost entirely of hardwood. The effects of these industries have not gone unpunished however, as the once beautiful streams that run along communities big and small are affected by Acid Mine Drainage, with projections of 3000 miles of Pennsylvania streams being affected. The state that was once named Penn's Woods does a great job making sure that their forests are being sustainable, but two of the main trees of the area, the aforementioned White Ash and the state tree the Eastern Hemlock are having biological issues due to invasive species. These types of issues are happening all around the world, but will many French citizens know about the White Ash and Eastern Hemlock? Do many Americans know about the attempts to save the Mediterranean monk seal? The fact that species are being endangered everywhere in the world is why this is a global concern. However, in the 1960s environmentalism got a huge boost. Wildlife refuges have been used to protect endangered species by protecting habitat the species is found in, the threat of non-native species has been more understood, and greater emphasis has been put on preservation of native species. I'm grateful that while I'm commuting to college, my parents are allowing me to plant native trees on their property, and I'm starting with White Ash trees, and can't wait to get Hemlock trees once available. However, you don't have to live in a rural, wooded area in order to help vulnerable species. Herbicides and Pesticides used in yards can be harmful to animals whether they work their way through the food chain or through their habitats, with amphibians especially at risk. If some are lucky enough to travel abroad, they should remember that other countries don't have the same restrictions as the United States or other developed countries. Products can be made from endangered species, or even just be the endangered species and are sold to interested tourists that don't know the effect they're causing, so spreading the word on which species are endangered can help that no more individual organisms have to be used for tourist gains.

While greenhouse gases and more specifically carbon capture is what everyone is focused on with climate change, the issue of acid mine drainage is what interests me the most. Growing up in southwestern Pennsylvania, I have seen first hand and have worked first hand with waterways damaged by former mines in the area. During high school I attended a camp that worked with monitoring macro invertebrates, specifically dragonfly larvae in waterways affected by AMD and waterways that are being treated for AMD. If I end up becoming a freshwater biologist rather than a wildlife biologist, I would like to find treatment methods that completely eliminate the problems caused by AMD in order to bring my state's waterways to healthier levels like they were when Pennsylvania was settled. The idea of remediation ponds is working at times, but being in a region prone to flooding, especially in the spring, it's not unheard of for ponds to overflow and erase what progress has been done. I would like to explore methods of eliminating the acidity at the source rather than having it go through stages of remediation like what is being done now.