Our student newspaper Ink is underway and I'm the environment reporter. While thinking of a story pitch last week, I was chatting with my best friend who is a third year limnology student. She was telling me about one of her professors and his enthusiasm.
I decided to meet with him after our conversation to see if he had any environment leads for me. Turns out my intuition paid off! Low and behold was a fantastic story to be told. Wascana Lake is being studied by limnologists to determine the effects of fertilizer on bodies of water. Urea is an organic compound, in a chemistry sense, and is used in nearly 90 per cent of the fertilizer around the world. The problem is that this organic compound may actually be causing the more harm than good. After a brief interview with Peter Leavitt and a successful pitch in class, I set off to Wascana Lake to speak with Matthew Bogard. He is the lead researcher in the Wascana Lake research.
Matt was literally just finishing the last clean-up of the practical research. Over numerous weeks this summer, he'd taken water samples. As he stood there with dirty jeans and t-shirt from all the cleaning, he couldn't stop grinning. He was off to the lab to start his lab work. Work he hopes will take him only till Christmas. Derek, a student who did a similar study last year was standing beside him and laughed. "More like Easter," Derek chimed. I'm going to chat with some others to get a better perspective on urea fertilizer. First copy due on Wednesday!
Check out my article online at http://www.jschool.ca//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=171&Itemid=1
