PROJECT TITLE
Project RIVERS (Raising Insight Via Environmental Research for Salmon): a turbidity sensor stationed nearby rivers to advocate for conserving the health of salmon
PROJECT GOAL: It’s important that animals are protected–especially those underwater which go unseen. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal of life below water addresses the concerns of inequity in our seas: pollution, overfishing, underdeveloped technology, lack of advocacy, etc. High turbidity levels pose a threat to all river-dwelling creatures, so our team immediately sought to educate ourselves; ultimately, we decided to collect data that would be beneficial for the conservation of salmon. Our team decided to tackle this issue because we understand our oceans are becoming more unsafe for the lives within it, and we had to conserve them.
Our team proposes to sense turbidity levels with as little human interference as possible. After multiple conversations about the importance of advocacy in promoting societal change, our team decided to embrace it with technology. The plan is to provide our client with valuable quantitative information that can be used to spread awareness. Being able to acknowledge the challenges salmon face with numbers that will inspire people to take action. Because technology is meant to reduce human intervention–the main cause of salmon decline–our team thought of a way to do so: have a retractable arm where our sensor is held onto. Our simple contraption will be controlled away from the location where it is placed. This lessens the risk of possible human interference with their habitat. To reduce the impact our device has on local wildlife, our sensor will be placed on a dock and dip into the water for 10 seconds, collecting data.We’ll have multiple contraptions instead of one on wheels. We want to collect data from salmon spawns, dam areas, and other differently elevated spots. This helps us understand where to focus our attention for organized safe removal and filtration to address the inequity salmon–and life below water–face.
