Hi! My name is Gillian Pineau, and I am a senior in high school. This whole website is for my Capstone project- a class where you get to explore an area of interest. My area of interest was Watershed forestry, or how the health of a forest can impact the quality of water. However, that main focus point had changed throughout the class, as I learned more information about different fields of environmental science through my shadowing. I had talked to many different people, who all worked within different areas, and had different jobs, so I gained many perspectives on environmental science. I had started out this project with a very general direction of environmental science, however, I knew that I really enjoyed forestry. After talking with people like Dr. Kristine Stepenuk, Allison Adams, Stever Barlett, and Diane Robles, I realized I could combine my love of forestry and watershed sciences. This all led me to my final project; assessing the forest and watershed health of the colchester school system.

I conducted soil and water tests, taken from samples on the properties of Bacon Academy, William J. Johnston / CES, and Jack Jackter to find qualitative answers to my question (How does the health of a forest impact the overall quality of a watershed?), and spent hours researching the indicators of forest health, what the test results mean, what are good levels of chemicals to have in an ecosystem, ect to further my knowledge on the subject. After all the research and testing had been completed, everything else fell into place. This website is like a melting pot of everything I had learned, and serves as a community center for the public schools where I took the samples of water and soil from.

Under each grade level grouping, there are different activities that one can complete to gain a better understanding of how everything is connected and why it is important. K-5 has coloring book pages, complete with descriptions to help the artist know what they are coloring. 6-8 has a 35 minute podcast to listen to, and a podcast quiz they can play to solidify their knowledge. 9-12 has an online scavenger hunt they can complete, and can skim through the report to help them out with any questions they might have.