Name:
Emily Perry

Major:
Geography and Environmental Studies

Graduation Year:


Internship Project:
Ozone Garden

Project Goals:
Monitor the effects of ground level ozone on bioindicator plants 
Provide an outdoor laboratory for students, faculty and visitors 
Increase UCCS' community awareness of the effects of ozone damage 

Project Description:The Ozone Garden is a student-run, citizen-scientist, Green Action Funded project located in the front yard of the Sustainability Demonstration House that collects data for the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO. NCAR collects data from multiple sites across Colorado to measure the effects of ground-level ozone on plant life. There is a reason NCAR is collecting this data: ozone levels in the Denver Metro/Front Range Region have been out of compliance with the US Environmental Protection Agency since 2007. Understanding the effects of rising ozone levels is an active area of research for NCAR. The Ozone Garden blog can be found here. 

Why are you interested in sustainability? I am interested in sustainability because I hate to see our planet's resources go to waste, and I think that we can all do things differently to help protect our environment for future generations. 

What is your favorite part of the Internship Program? My favorite part of the Internship Program was being able to receive credit while gaining hands-on experience and knowledge that otherwise I would have never known. Before I started this internship, I never knew that we had bad ozone pollution or how it effects the environment. Seeing how it affected the plants in the Ozone Garden was eye opening for me.