This summer, Abby Sotomayor ‘20, Will Krohn ‘23 and Kelsey Bennett ‘22 worked on various environmental projects based in the Adirondack Park in Upstate New York as a part of the Upstate Institute Summer Field School. Kelsey and Abby both worked with AdkAction, a small non-profit organization based in Saranac Lake focusing on the road salt and pollinator project respectively. Will spent his summer focusing on bird conservation by working for two different non-profits: The New York State Breeding Bird Atlas and The Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation. Their experiences were fairly different as they all focused on different environmental issues but they did notice overlap in how they tackled their projects and the impacts from their projects. Below, they describe their experiences.
Abby Sotomayor, Kelsey Bennett and Will Krohn were able to spend time in the Adirondack Park before beginning their projects, as the COVID-19 campus closure meant that their research done in partnership with Adirondacks-based agencies took place virtually.