During the Spring semester 2005, seven Dickinson College Environmental Studies and Science majors took a senior seminar taught by Professor Candie Wilderman entitled, "Where the Rivers End: The Life and Death of Our Estuaries." During this seminar, each student chose an interdisciplinary research topic related to an environmental challenge in the lower Mississippi River basin. The students then took the results of these senior research projects and translated them into websites, in an effort to make the materials readily available to future "Luce semester" students to provide a context for further studies and exploration of these issues. In this way, our students who graduated in 2005 (although born too late to be involved in the Luce semester!) have left behind a legacy for the younger students, and have begun the journey to increase our understanding and awareness of the environmental challenges and the human context in the two regions to be studied during the Luce semester.
Visit the 2005 Senior Seminar Website
Saving the Sinking Salt Marshes: Comparing Wetland Restoration Case Studies to Louisiana's Breaux Act by Maggie Allio
"Dead Zones" of the U.S.: Hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay by Cassie Gurbisz
The Breaux Act by George Tyler Rumph
Environmental Health Injustice in Fenceline Communities along "CancerAlley" by Kiera Fredericksen
Corporate Responsibility and the Louisiana Oil Industry by Rob Berns
The Effect of Subsidence and Sea Level Rise on Land and Coastal Habitat Loss in Coastal LA by Mike Andree
Community-based Interest Groups in the Chesapeake Bay by Will Stephens
Coastal Louisiana Resource Center: Annotated Web Links and Reviewed Videos by the Senior Seminar Class, Spring 2005