Question: What was the most scientific thing you've done

Karen answered on 7 Nov 2018:

The most scientific thing I’ve done is a method called “sediment fingerprinting”. First, I gather a sample of soil (also called sediment when it’s in rivers) and run it through 5 lab experiments. I test my sample for magnetics, metals, size, organic properties (i.e. how much living things are in the sample) and radionuclides (if the soil is naturally radioactive or has nuclear energy). Then I might gather soil from a farm and from a forest. I run the farm sample and forest sample through the same 5 lab experiments. With the results of my experiments, I should be able to tell whether the sediment in the river came from the farm or from the forestry; then I can help stop the soil coming from the farm or forestry and affecting the mussels. We call it fingerprinting because it’s like trying to find a criminal at a crime scene with their unique fingerprint on their fingers, but in this case the criminal is soil and the fingerprint could be what metal is in the soil! Let me know if you have any more questions! 🙂