Two CREWS undergraduate research students, Shannon Hamp and Baylie Phillips, were recently announced as Goldwater Scholars. This scholarship is the most prestigious award in the natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics in the United States and is given to sophomores and juniors who show exceptional promise to be the next generation of research leaders in their fields. Shannon Hamp is a junior majoring in electrical and computer engineering at Montana State University. Hamp became involved with CREWS through a Research Experience for Undergraduates project in summer 2021 working in Dr. Joe Shaw's lab. She assisted with drone-based hyperspectral imaging of algae in the Judith River Basin and the Upper Clark Fork River, while also developing a low-cost multispectral imager for river algae detection. Baylie Phillips is a junior majoring in metallurgical and materials engineering at Montana Technological University. Phillips worked with Dr. Jerry Downey in fall 2021 as a CREWS undergraduate research intern, where she investigated selenium absorption and removal in Continuous Flow Metal Recovery systems. Phillips’ research continues to encompass a broad array of disciplines but focuses mainly on exploring the life cycle of materials and ultimately removing materials from environmental systems. READ MORE

Montana Technological University (MTU) was recently awarded a five-year, $24M research and development grant from the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) to develop a research program called "Materials Technology for Rare Earth Elements Processing." Dr. Jerry Downey, a CREWS research lead at MTU, will be the PI for the award, and Dr. Grant Wallace, a Research Associate in Dr. Downey's research group, will act as co-PI. The program, developed in partnership with the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology (MBMG), will build on the advances in the Continuous Flow Metal Recovery (CFMR) system developed during the current Track-1 CREWS project and will include analysis of large waste systems of the Butte-Anaconda mining complex and Montana coal mines. The goal of the program is to develop innovative, environmentally friendly, and industrially viable methods for recovering and separating rare earth elements (REE), and ultimately help lay the groundwork for economically and environmentally-sound utilization of REE sources in the United States. READ MORE

CREWS researcher Robert (Bob) Hall was recognized as an ASLO (Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography) fellow for the 2021 year for his sustained excellence in contributions to aquatic sciences. The Fellows program began in 2015 as a way for ASLO to acknowledge those members that consistently contribute to ASLO through their service to journals, conferences, and committees that advance the science of limnology and oceanography. Bob Hall is a professor of limnology at Flathead Lake Biological Station through the University of Montana, where he has worked since 2017. He has been interested in stream carbon cycling since attending graduate school at the University of Georgia. Hall’s current work links geomorphology to stream metabolism and nitrogen cycling, time-series analyses of river metabolism, isotope tracers, and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) dynamics in streams. READ MORE

In the past year, members of the CREWS Natural Resource Social Science (NRSS) and Judith River Watershed (JRW) teams published two articles. The first article, entitled "Social memory and infrastructure governance: A century in the life of a rural water drinking system" was published in Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability. The paper examines how shared social memories of water hardship impact water governance decision-making in the town of Denton (Haggerty et al., 2021). The second paper, "Beyond city limits: Infrastructural regionalism in rural Montana, USA," was published in Territory, Politics, Governance. It analyzes the political geography of the Central Montana Regional Water Authority and its proposed regional water pipeline system (Gansauer & Haggerty, 2021). The team is currently in the final stages of preparing a third publication for submission. This article will use region-wide interview data to articulate the community resilience dynamics associated with drinking water governance in the Judith region. READ MORE

Two CREWS Graduate Students Present at Diving into Data Workshop

The Diving into Data workshop, held in February, introduced teachers to a variety of methods to employ real-world data in their classrooms. The workshop, hosted by the Science Math Resource Center (SMRC) and supported by Montana NSF EPSCoR, included lightning talks from Riley Logan, a Ph.D. student at MSU, and Megan Moore, a Ph.D. student from UM, in addition to other researchers and staff. Some of the resources provided at the workshop included methods to collect data related to water quality, cloud cover, and ground temperature. Teachers who attended also received resources like water quality measurement kits and temperature sensors to engage in data collection in the classroom. READ MORE

Science Math Resource Center Participates in MSU Family Science Day

Staff from the Science Math Resource Center (SMRC) participated in the annual MSU Family Science Day in April. The event, hosted by Academic Technology and Outreach, featured hands-on activities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. At the event SMRC staff, along with CREWS seed grant awardee Dr. Erika Espinosa-Ortiz and CREWS graduate student Caitlin Mitchell Mayernik, facilitated a CREWS Junior Researcher activity focused on water quality for over 150 fourth and fifth-grade students from schools around Bozeman. 

spectrUM Discovery Area Hosts

Family Science Night in Anaconda

On April 27^th-28^th, the University of Montana spectrUM Discovery Area visited with students at Fred Moodry Intermediate School in Anaconda. Students participated in guided field trip programs in STEM and making and tinkering-related activities. Teachers participated in a professional development workshop to build their capacity to bring STEM experiences to their students, and spectrUM hosted a Family Science Night to engage the whole community. Megan Moore, a research assistant with the CREWS Upper Clark Fork River (UCFR) team and human geographer studying the Anaconda Company Smelter Superfund site, joined the Family Science Night with an interactive activity about the Smelter.

Chief Joseph Middle School Students Learn about Water Quality through CREWS Junior

Researcher Activity

In late April, staff from the Science Math Resource Center (SMRC) at MSU conducted a CREWS education and outreach activity at Chief Joseph Middle School (CJMS) in Bozeman as part of their Earth Day celebrations. Over 100 sixth-grade students participated in the activity, which was a variation of the CREWS Junior Researcher acid mine drainage activity developed by Dr. Erika Espinosa-Ortiz, an Assistant Research Professor with the Center for Biofilm Engineering at MSU. CJMS students used pH strips to test different "contaminated" water samples, then built a filter using soda bottles, cotton balls, activated carbon, and other natural materials to filter the samples and examine how the water quality might have changed due to filtration.