Student Research Reports

This research project is on the condition of soil and water in proximity of road construction in a peatland. To examine this, GLOBE data was collected at six different locations in the Peat Ponds Wildlife Area. This area is at a low elevation in the Goldstream Valley and is made up of black spruce wetland with dense moss as the ground cover. The pond consists of a few cattail islands and stands along the bank along with tall grasses and even small birch trees along the south bank. Through my time growing up in the Goldstream Valley I have noticed that the section of the Goldstream road north of the Peat Ponds has had lots of reconstruction and repaving due to damages from the permafrost. With such repeated paving I am curious if there is measurable pollution to the Peat Ponds environment. I hypothesized that the soil and water conditions in this environment would decrease with greater proximity to the road and parking lot. From the data I collected, it appears that there may be variability in the soil temperature.