Students to Present Results of Mercury Research

More than 200 students and science teachers from Bangor, John Bapst, Old Town, Mount View and Sumner Memorial high schools who have been conducting research on mercury in local watersheds will present and explain their findings at a poster session at John Bapst High School in Bangor at 9 a.m. on Friday, May 25. The research project, “Acadia Learning,” is a program of the Schoodic Education and Research Center (SERC) Institute at Acadia National Park, which works with the Mitchell Center and Maine Sea Grant at the University of Maine to train and support teachers for research designed to engage high school students in sample collection and data analysis for mercury. UMaine’s Sawyer Environmental Chemistry Research Laboratory did the analyses.

Students use the data to investigate their own research questions about how mercury accumulates in food chains in local streams. The data have become part of a regional database coordinated by UMaine scientist Sarah Nelson, adding to a regional picture of mercury in fresh waters across the Northeast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Maine Department of Education, private donors and the Davis Foundation fund Acadia Learning.

Contact: Sarah Nelson, (207) 581-3454 / sarah.nelson@umit.maine.edu