Meet the Spring 2022 Team
Andrew is a first year student at College of the Canyons majoring in Biology. Their project is to monitor the on campus birdhouses throughout the spring. On top of that, Andrew is creating a more robust system for collecting data on the campus bird population. Andrew also aims to create an accessible guide for future students to monitor the bird houses.
Watch their presentation here: https://youtu.be/zumYBbWGyc4
Misheel Unur is a second year pre-dental student at COC majoring in Biology. Misheel was inspired to have her project focus on the potential benefits of vermicompost on plants after she began vermicomposting to reduce her carbon footprint and dispose of her food waste properly. Her project is an at home experiment to determine if adding worm castings and/or watering with compost tea vs. water has any effect on the overall growth of three different vegetables (lettuce, bok choy, radish) as opposed to the control group which is soil without any organic amendments.
Watch her presentation here: https://youtu.be/0iaoHjXkIXo
Nathan is majoring in Biology and hopes to transfer to a university. He hopes to work in the field of Astrobiology one day and would love to work at SETI or NASA. He is working on two projects, he is aiding in the monitoring and collecting of data on the local Cliff Swallow population on the COC campus, as well as working on building new garden cages for the community garden at COC. His goal is to raise awareness about the local Cliff Swallow population on campus so that people may take better measures in taking care of the biodiversity. His goal for the community garden is to improve the quality of life and encourage its use to help build a stronger sense of community on campus.
Watch his presentation here: https://youtu.be/aGKZJOwvAUw
Colin Ruiz is a first year student at College of the Canyons and is majoring in Environmental Science. In the future, he hopes to transfer in two years to a university in the UC system, preferably UCLA or UCSD, to pursue his passion for science. For his project, he is specializing in working on projects associated with the birds on campus. Specifically, he is observing and recording data on the cliff swallows and their nests.
Watch his presentation here: https://youtu.be/upVOgaTiehQ
Nabihah Khan is a first year stuent at COC. She is majoring in neuroscience and plans to transfer to UCLA and eventually earn her PhD. The project she is doing is based on biophilia, or the innate human instinct to connect with nature. Her goal is to determine if being in nature improves mental health disorders and also increases happiness levels. She will conduct a study in which a group of people will spend a certain amount of time in nature, and then compare the state of their mental health and their happiness levels before and after the study.
Watch her presentation here: https://youtu.be/Piistf2_Hdg
Sara is currently a second-year student at College of the Canyons. Her goal is to transfer to a CSU and complete a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Science. Her semester project focuses on restoring a portion of the native plant demonstration garden on the Valencia campus. The area holds numerous plants native to Southern California. She plans to remove invasive vegetation that has grown in the area as well as plant additional native plants. Her goal is to promote biodiversity on the campus by increasing available habitat for native organisms. She hopes that her efforts will help to attract a greater number of native bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.
Watch her presentation here: https://youtu.be/tl1JSL6cRYU
Addison is a junior at Castiac High School who is dually enrolled at College of the Canyons. She hopes to attend Harvard University or UCLA after high school and pursue her PhD in Environmental Science. Her project focuses on planting native plants on the Valencia campus in the community garden. She will plant native as well as drought-tolerant plants to promote biodiversity as well as sustainability. She hopes to connect her project to the broader issues of climate change and promote the benefits of biodiversity in mitigating environmental destruction.
Watch her presentation here: https://youtu.be/JsMWUtxk3XE
Sarah is currently a third year student at COC and she is majoring in Environmental Science. In the fall of this year she is transferring to Cal Poly Slo, and she will be majoring in Environmental Management and Protection. Her project is focused on the community garden at COC, specifically on building new garden bed covers to address the problem of rodents eating plants. She has a two plots of her own where she is growing different vegetables and herbs. She has also worked in the garden on weeding to give new life to the garden and encourage students to get involved.
Watch her presentation here: https://youtu.be/of9hXqskX_o
