Field-Trip to Long Island Vineyard
3rd Agricultural Geophysics Workshop at Cornell University’s Long Island Horticultural Research & Extension Center
Reflections
Innovation Unedited
Kenneth Arrow: 1972
Nobel Prize in Economics
Robert Aumann: 2005
Nobel Prize in Economics
Julius Axelrod: 1970
Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology
Stanley Cohen: 1986
Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology
Gertrude Elion: 1988
Nobel Prize in Physics
Herbert Hauptman: 1985
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Robert Hofstadter: 1961
Nobel Prize in Physics
Jerome Karle: 1985
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Arthur Kornberg: 1959
Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology
Leon Lederman: 1988
Nobel Prize in Physics
Arno Penzias: 1978
Nobel Prize in Astrophysics
Julian Schwinger: 1965
Nobel Prize in Physics
Rosalyn Yalow: 1977
Nobel Prize in Medicine
Lindsay Siegel
Executive Director
Zahn Innovation Center
City College of New York
Elizabeth Vilchis
Operations
Homer Delivery
Andrew L. Russell, Ph.D.
Director
Science & Tech Studies Prog
Associate Professor, History
Stevens Institute of Technology
Aaron M. Socha, Ph.D.
Director: Ctr for Sust Energy
Professor: Department of Chemistry
Bronx Community College, CUNY
Theo Vassilakis, Ph.D.
Founder & CEO
Metanautix
I am one of the co-authors of this poster. When initially looking into pollution in Dzderzhinsk, I had the impression that the problem could simply be fixed by cleaning the contaminated water. Besides learning that this was almost impossible, I realized how pollution can be sustained when the general population is not involved with decision making. The people of Dzerzhinsk have become almost immune to hearing about their chemical pollution, and a lot of this has to do with their government down-playing the situation. This shows just how integrated the issues of science, policy, and transparency in government are. You can’t address the problem without attempting to solve underlying issues first. This was an important lesson for me to learn because I see how this is often the case with many issues, including problems manifested in our own country.
I am one of the co-authors of this poster. My role in the project was identifying the problem and collecting data on the chemicals involved in the pollution. Before taking on the project, I had no knowledge of dioxins, but I have since learned that they are involved in many industrial processes. The types of dioxins involved in these processes tend to be toxic, like the ones produced in Dzerzhinsk. I was also surprised to learn of the low life expectancy and high mortality rate in Dzerzhinsk. Overall, the project gave me a greater understanding of how unregulated chemical manufacturing can ruin a country.
In my opinion, this poster was highly effective in presenting the issue and your proposed solution. The graphics display the information in an interesting way. I am also impressed by the fact that your solution involved not only methods of remediating the current issue, but also ways the issue can be prevented in the future (cleaner industry). Overall, very well done!
I agree with their assessment that community involvement in the remediation process is key to it being a success. They also did a good job explaining the issue plaguing Dzerzhinsk. They also accurately weighed the challenges facing their cleanup efforts, and were able to provide realistic conclusions and suggestions. I enjoyed the aesthetics of this poster. The images were well distributed throughout and there was no excess spacing.
From studying your poster, I can see why this issue is so important to resolve. Considering that Dzderzhinsk is deemed the most contaminated town in the world, combating its pollution issue is an ambitious and impressive feat. I think your strategy of using education and involving community members to resolve the issue is logical and will most likely be effective. The organization of your poster makes it very clear why this needs to be a community effort, particularly your chart regarding the ‘Building of a Community Center in Dzderzhinsk.” With the local people involved, the endeavor is more likely to be personal to them and they will be able to continue protecting their environment on their own and possibly even move on to a new, safer place.
One of the first things that jumped out to me in the poster was the organization- It’s very aesthetically interesting and encourages attention to the poster. In particular I liked how you laid out your solutions next to each other to concisely describe each method or plan you had in order to remediate the situation. I love the flow chart, and I also love how you connected to the issues on multiple levels from a microscopic level, and on more of a macro scale through public health data and the sociology of the situation.
I think your poster has a great balance between images and text. I personally believe the images chosen for Figure 8 and figure 9 sum up, and demonstrate the severity of the contamination in Dzerzhinsk. If anyone does plan on tackling this issue, it is terrifying to know that they will be faced by fierce resistance from a government that is supposed to protect the people within its borders. You brought this up in your comments Tala, “This shows just how integrated the issues of science, policy, and transparency in government are.” It is hard for the people to rise up and bring change, when they are misguided in the size and scope of what it is they are trying to change. For the sake of the Dzerzhinsk people, I hope some type of containment is initiated immediately.
The graphics used in this work are extremely powerful and effective. I can almost visualize the level of pollution of this place even without reading the details. It is great that you intend to create awareness of this threat to the community involved; this will really increase their cooperation and enable you to smoothly fix the issue.
Very organized and logical, looks good. Loved how you talked about “the ecology and the economy” throughout and that community action was your core solution, a great approach to a very tough problem. The photos you included of the White Sea really helped demonstrate just how messy things are and really helped me envision the pollution. Is figure 7 a stock photo of people raising their hands? I like it, it adds to the poster.
I thought the poster was very well organized, and that the explanation of the pollution problem in Dzerzhinsk was well laid out and explicit. I very much liked the flow-chart visually illustrating the cyclicality of the problems, and I thought that the pictures in general were well chosen, since they helped the extremeness of the Dzerzhinsk pollution seem much more immediate and non-abstrect
Right off the bat, your images of the pollution in Dzerzhinsk caught my attention. Your abstract only further supported the immense pollution that exists in this town. I personally enjoyed the circular flow chart backed by empty oil barrels. Even though Dzerzhinsk is the most chemically polluted city, I found it great that you included the social and political challenges that also exist. It would be interesting to see how much of an obstacle the government would be if your solution were implemented.
I really like how your poster looks. It is very clean and well structured. The use of pictures are also very good. The photographs of the site really shows the extents of damage/pollution in the city. The flowchart was a nice addition as well. the description of the cyclic process of pollution helped me understand the challenges of cleaning this site.
Aesthetically, your poster is simple and has a good number of images to illustrate your point. As I read your poster, I was amazed at how the distribution of mis-information and/or the hiding of real information can contribute to a cycle of death. In this case, your poster makes a very valid point regarding the building of a community center so that the citizens of Dzerzhinsk can be informed.
The layout of the poster was very nice and made it easy to read. I like how you guys created a chart with your proposed solution broken down into four parts. In your one goal, you explained the processes necessary to achieving that goal. The picture of the White Sea was really strong and I’m amazed at how it was kept a secret until 1991. How do you keep something like that a secret!?
The layout and distribution of information is visually appealing. The cyclic nature of this problem, both presented in the form of an image on the poster and inferred, seems to be a huge problem in Dzerzhinsk. The proposed solutions appear both plausible and implementable – the willingness of both the population and the government, however, seem questionable. Why is it that the administration consistently lies about the situation and provides false information?
I really like your proposed solution: building a community center in Dzerzhinsk. It covers many different facets that it could potentially be a holistically feasible solution. How long do you think these centers will last in the region? Is it going to be regulated by the local government or do foreign aid communities have a say in its long-term implementation?
You have a very clean, impactful design and very damning information.
Kudos on the clear presentation of this crazy issue.
I liked the use of pictures in your poster, since it was very hard for me to not notice the large sea of sludge. I think the pictures used worked great in grabbing my attention and then your use of flow charts and tables kept me there wanting to learn more. It’s interesting how you admit that flat out cleaning up all the pollution isn’t too feasible, but providing ways of kick starting the cleanup and mitigating what is currently there is a great start to making change.
Your poster had incredible visuals. It really shows the damage and severity of the contamination. I really liked the flowcharts and table, which were a great way to bring all of the information together. The data was presented clearly and emphasized the issues facing this town, which is not well known of both domestically and internationally.
This was the first poster session I attended, and I thought it was a good learning experience. At first, I found it difficult to adequately describe our pitch in such a short period of time, but after I did it a few times, I figured out which sections of the poster were most essential to the presentation. Overall, I feel that my presentation skills improved. I also enjoyed hearing about other students’ work because each seminar class focused on a different topic. It was interesting to see which branches of science other groups focused on. Because of all the different topics presented, our poster stood out since it was one of the only ones about an international polluted site. It attracted a lot of students, so I had many opportunities to improve my presentation skills.
Going into the poster session, I hadn’t prepared a pitch for our project. This was also my first poster display, so when someone first approached our poster, I wasn’t exactly sure what to say. I was soon forced to quickly think on my feet, but after talking to the first few individuals, I quickly got used to the art of the “pitch.” This was the most meaningful experience for me because I had to verbalize the project we spent so long exploring. A good portion of the people who came up were students who are simply expected to go around the posters and talk to the authors, so not everyone was genuinely interested in hearing about the project. However, this was also balanced with others who genuinely wanted to hear more about Dzerzhinsk, and we also were able to gain insight from some of their comments.
The diagrams here are exceptional. They make the information very easy to understand. Building a community center is very social approach that I feel is unique. Your solution is very well-rounded — environmentally, economically, and socially. But, are you sure that the site cannot be cleaned? Otherwise, this would be very cool to see implemented.
You did a great job of analyzing the sociopolitical status of how the Russian government deals with environmental issues. There is potential for an in-depth study on potential remediation techniques, especially if they are worth the investment. It would be interesting to see the Russian Federation’s work on this.
This project does a thorough job of not only addressing the environmental problem but also other factors that caused this problem. Are the people of Russia aware of the extreme situation? If so, has there been any efforts to have the liable parties help clean the site?
Comprehensive poster, it seems like this is one of the more opportunistic projects as long as sufficient attention is brought to it.
There is a lot of information on this poster, which helps the reader, understand the issues. I like how they broke it down into human impacts, as well as demonstrating the chemical aspects of the pollutants.
These images in this picture speak 1000 words. It is unbelievable how polluted an area can get. I was also drawn to the pollution cycle and how it states that the news does not show how polluted this area is and also does not show how people are getting sick from it. That is a very big problem in todays world, we hide what we don’t want people to know even though it can be very serious. I really like this poster. Overall, great job.
This was really informative even though it is not obvious to get certain information about Russia.
At some point the availability of healthy workers to employ these factories will be gone due to the death rate being higher then the birth maybe the pollution will stop.
If you had to come up with a more technical proposed solution, what would you suggest for this issue?
this poster did a great job of sharing a serious environmental concern. Is there anything to be done about cleaning up the chemical waste that is already in the environment?
Do you think that this is a end result of the so called Cold war that was imposed on Russia by another power?
Although cleaning up the contamination is basically out of the question. are there options for better containment so there is limited farther spreading of the contamination in to the environment?
I do believe that educating the mass of the problem will help I believe that this will take long time to see actual results but this may help save our earth.
Your poster sheds light over a an interesting environmental problem that can easily be forgotten in the global community. I like how organized your with picture to explain the chemistry of involved compounds and the graph laying out the solution.
anything involved in politics will be more complicated. I think they can shift their chemical-pollution-job to other jobs slowly. so the government should create more job positions.
Good job on calling out the Russian government and the industry itself. Because of the heavy pollution I think any remediation effort will not only help the local population but also provide some interesting opportunities of research.
This is such a sad situation. There is no way to clean the air, soil, and water because of the sins of the past. Is it wise to allow people to continue to live in such an environment? I guess it might not be realistic for a poor community of around 200,000 people to move elsewhere. I hope the idea of a community center reaches some of the higher ups and they are able to make substantial strides in the effort to mitigate Dzerzhinsk’s many problems.