Centre County Pennsylvania Senior Environmental Corps

May 3, 2006 - RSVP Luncheon: Centre County PaSEC members attended a luncheon held by RSVP of Centre County at the Penn Stater Conference Center. The luncheon was held to honor all RSVP volunteers.

June 14, 2006 - Meeting at Laurel Haven: Becky Dunlap from the Clearwater Conservancy spoke about the Water Resources Monitoring Project. Also, Content Guidelines for Centre County PaSEC's Website were approved and Brad Babcock reported on monitoring at the new Spring Creek Canyon sites.

July 12, 2006 - Meeting at Laurel Haven: Jeremy Harper, a Penn State graduate student, gave an interesting demonstration of electro-shock fishing to collect samples for weighing, measuring, and recording. He also demonstrated a macroinvertebrate collection procedure using a knick-net. Specimens collected could be used for biosurvey identification and population count purposes.

July 18, 2006 - EASI Training for MonitorAnything Database: Andy Alm, the developer of the database, gave a very detailed description of the database and its flexibility. Hands-on training of how to enter data and display reports was given. New features were described including the ability to produce a satellite picture of the location of each monitoring site.

July 26, 2006 - North Central Regional Watershed Meeting/Potluck: PaSEC chairman Doug Macneal represented the Centre County PASEC at the meeting at Sieg Conference Center in Clinton County. Seven watershed associations were represented. The group enjoyed a picnic pot luck dinner. Joe Gyekis, Penns Valley native and PSU graduate student in geography, then spoke about assessing ecological conditions in Central Pennsylvania watersheds through songbirds.

August 9, 2006 - Joint Meeting/Pot Luck - Centre Co. & Clearfield Co. PaSECs: Members met at Black Moshannon State Park. Michelle Michael, an Environmental Education Specialist guided a very interesting pontoon boat ride/beaver hunt for our members. This was followed by a hike featuring wild flowers and butterflies. Our business meeting was held prior to a GREAT picnic/potluck lunch! Thanks to Clearfield Co. PaSEC and RSVP for sponsoring the event and providing goodies! Photos of the picnic, pontoon boat ride/beaver hunt, and wildflower hike are available in Photo Gallery Page 6.

August 23, 2006 - Macroinvertebrate Presentation Prep: Six PaSEC members gathered at Laurel Haven Environmental Center to prepare macroinvertebrate photos and movies for PaSEC's presentation at Spring Creek Day. Members used a kick net to collect specimens which were placed under a Digital Blue Microscope connected to a laptop computer. Macros were photographed and filmed using the microscope under computer control, while their images were projected to a screen. Photos of the macros are available in Photo Gallery Page 7.

September 13, 2006 - Quality Control Workshop & Meeting: 23 Centre County PaSEC members met at Laurel Haven Environmental Center. Genie Robine lead the workshop and helped teams check monitoring kits for missing equipment and out of date chemicals. Team members also tested pH and Conductivity meter batteries, replacing weak ones. Each team performed the following tests on standard solutions: pH, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, and sulfates. This allowed meters to be calibrated, kit chemicals to be assessed for effectiveness, and testing techniques to be assessed. Mick McKay and Stan Lubeck gave Colorimeter demonstrations to all teams. Teams compared their nitrates readings on high and low nitrates stream samples to those obtained using the Colorimeter. Photos of the workshop are available in Photo Gallery Pages 9 & 10.

September 17, 2006 - Spring Creek Day Family Festival: 5 members of our chapter represented Centre County PaSEC during Spring Creek Day at Millbrook Marsh Nature Center. A display was presented containing information on our chapter's activities and website. Members also manned an educational station using up-to-date technology to help attendees identify, examine, photograph, and film live macroinvertebrates.

October 11, 2006 - General Meeting: Centre County PaSEC members met at the Willowbank Building in Bellefonte. Several items had been ordered: new pH meters to replace broken ones, new batteries for meters, and replacement chemicals for out-of-date ones. The EASI-sponsored Train the Trainer Workshop to be held in York on October 25 & 26 was discussed. No member committed to attending at this time. Itemized funding from EASI for our chapter was re-examined and clarified. It was decided to form a Budget Committee whose membership is still to be determined.

November 8, 2006 - General Meeting: Centre County PaSEC members met at the Willowbank Building in Bellefonte. An updated membership list was distributed. A draft budget for the 2007 fiscal year was presented for member input. Further refinement will be done before formal adoption. Quality Control teams will meet with 2 teams in November. QC teams will take photos of the monitoring sites - upstream, downstream, across the stream and behind the stream as well as into the water. QC teams will also take photos of team members for inclusion on the website. A training session for new members will be held in December with the date TBA. Several members will check into commerical lab costs for running various duplicate tests as quality control on random samples from our monitoring sites. A protocol for water sample collection for these tests will be established.

Team 7 Photos - Team 7 which monitors Buffalo Run at Benner Township Park, the Kolln site, and Carson's Corner submitted some great photos for our website. The photos can be found on the Teams/Trainers Page as well as in Photo Gallery Page 8. All teams are encouraged to submit photos of their team members and their monitoring sites for posting on our website.

December 13, 2006 - General Meeting: Centre County PaSEC members met at the Willowbank Building in Bellefonte. A report was given on the cost for duplicate lab tests on our monitoring samples. Quality Control teams have been meeting with teams to verify their test results and monitoring techniques. Some interesting findings were reported. A revised draft budget was presented for review. Members agreed to postpone the Annual Meeting to February 14, 2007 and eliminate the 2007 January meeting. Election of officers, Budget adoption, and votes on Constitution/Bylaws changes will be held at the Annual Meeting. A training session for new members was announced for December 14.