TL;DR Have an interest in doing citizen science addressing climate change? help me figure out what we should do together!
Hi All,My name is Zach Smith, and I'm writing to ask for all of your help in determining and hopefully executing a new phase of environmental justice projects to take place at Counter Culture Labs. My background is in biochemistry and analytical chemistry, and while I don't have a lot of experience, in general and certainly not in Counter-Culture Labs, I have a few ideas I think we could look into:
1. looking at bay water, both in context of how recent algae blooms have shifted the environmental health and what organisms have been able to survive in the bloom and how
2. looking at soil health in nearby farmland and other vulnerable agricultural spaces, and assessing options for helping improve soil health cost-effectively
3. looking at other crisis-affected environmental spaces and assessing both what the problem is and what the solution is (Focus on what the community cares about!!)
This means, in general, my vision is for most of the science to be organized into three main components: analyzing pollutants in various environments (analytical chemistry), analyzing organisms and microorganisms that are surviving in critical-state environments (microbiology and various biological disciplines), and evaluating and possibly implementing efficient and robust solutions (interdisciplinary, probably with big parts molecular biology and mechanical/electrical engineering). If you have any experience in any of these fields or know someone who does, I would greatly appreciate any help or advice. If you do not, please feel free to get involved anyways, as all I am really looking for is an interest in the climate crisis and finding solutions!
I will be sending along another email shortly to ask what times would work best to start up a recurring weekly meeting, but from what I understand from Patrik Fridays would work best for the lab schedule, however if enough of us can do another time then that is what we will do.
I want this to be a project driven by all of ours mutual passion to address the climate crisis and the needs/wants of the community, so please be vocal! If you have any other ideas at all, I am nothing but ears (or eyes if it's via email), and if you don't right now feel free to brainstorm and come up with an idea down the line! I am so excited to start this journey with all of you and whoever else you know is interested, and I can't wait for what we will do together.
Lastly, unless anyone has an input otherwise, I will begin our work by creating an experimental design to evaluate the pollutants and microorganisms in the algae blooms, which I hope to have finished in the next couple of weeks!
Please email me if you have any questions you don't want to be a part of the group conversation, and I look forward to seeing your ideas!
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