Bowdoin

Charting New Territory

Independent study at Bowdoin College

Ed Sweeney '03 could feel himself sinking into the muck. His waders slurped noisily as he and Geology Professor Ed Laine dragged a giant tripod, Vibra-Core sampler, and generator across the clam flats in Maquoit Bay. For nearly six hours, the pair battled against mud, cumbersome equipment, and an incoming tide to gather core samples of sediments and sand dating back to before the last Ice Age.

"This is definitely not easy work," grimaced Sweeney, harnessing a one-ton chain to the buried core pipe. "But when we're done, we should have a pretty good idea what the relative sea level was here when the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated."

Sweeney, a Bowdoin geology major, was performing field work for an independent study project on the glacial marine sedimentation of the Presumpscot Formation beneath the Eastern Casco Bay region of Maine. When the day was through, he would return to Bowdoin's geology lab and cut open the sealed, 4-meter core with a circular saw. Picking through for fossils and shell fragments and comparing them with other cores he had gathered, Sweeney used Carbon-14 dating to determine more exactly when this part of the Maine coast was underwater.

"It's a piece of history you want to know," said Sweeney. "This whole area was covered by glaciers and there were some peculiar changes when they melted. The sea level rose as the glacier retreated, but the land, which had been weighed down by ice, rebounded. By studying this, we can get a better understanding of what happens to land when sea levels change."

Although not required, independent study projects are an integral part of academic life at Bowdoin. Working closely with a faculty advisor, students have an opportunity to design their own education and develop practical expertise in their field of study. Additionally, the projects help students develop technical and research capabilities not normally available at an undergraduate level.

Sweeney has spent almost two years gathering and analyzing information. It began with a Rusack Fellowship during summer break, when Sweeney proposed to continue research conducted by two former Bowdoin geology students. This early research had Sweeney perched in a pontoon boat, doing sonic profiling of the Presumpscot Formation beneath the water.

Once prime coring sites were identified, Sweeney gathered samples and analyzed fossils with Bowdoin's scanning electron microscope - one of just a handful in use in the country. The microscope allows him to magnify his samples up to 100,000 per cent and perform chemical and even atomic analysis.

"I get to use a lot of high-tech equipment, but I also get to go into the field, slosh around in boats, do research and spend time in the lab. It's a good mix," grinned Sweeney, who plans to become an environmental consultant after college.

Many Bowdoin students extend learning outside the classroom in other ways, such as service learning projects, which integrate classroom learning with real needs or problems in the community. In his sophomore year, for instance, Sweeney participated in a service-learning project in cooperation with the National Resource Defense Council, to determine the geological features and activities near sunken nuclear submarines. Another community partnership had Sweeney mapping the contours of the New Meadows River near Bowdoin.

Prof. Laine sees hands-on work as a critical part of intellectual development at Bowdoin: "Students feel that the stuff they're doing in classes is important. Even if they're not science majors, they're dealing with real data and numbers. You've got to give them a wrench and open their minds, give them a compass out in the field. Something simple that shows them that they are competent, that this is how knowledge is made."

For his part, Laine says that independent study gives him a rich understanding of his students' capabilities and challenges. "Being shoulder-to-shoulder in the field from the first year on really lets us know about students. We can give them good advice. When it comes time to write about students for jobs or graduate school we really know what they can do, what tools they've mastered, what projects they've completed."

Sweeney not only knows how to use an Electron Back Scatter Defractometer, for instance, he also knows how to get three guys, two computers, a generator and a sonar boom into a 14-foot skiff that is dragging a 300-pound sonar "fish."

As he wrapped up his project, Sweeney traveled to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he successfully presented his research at the regional meeting of the Geological Society of America - and drew the attention of a leading expert in marine biology.

"As I was presenting, I realized that almost no one knows as much about this topic as I do right now," boasted Sweeney. "That's a pretty cool feeling."

It's the kind of confidence that can only come from doing.

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