It was not a dam. by Spencer

It was not a dam. by Spencer - June 2024 Scholarship Essay

I was almost expelled from high school at the beginning of my senior year. It was due to my presence on a trip well outside of cell service,assisting two undergraduate students with research on how large woody debris impacted sedimentation and habitat on the North Fork of the Toutle River and its tributaries. If you are unfamiliar with the area, here is a brief summary: Mt. St. Helens erupted, releasing about a cubic mile of soft sediment into the nearby area. Much of this sediment surrounded the North Fork Toutle, which prompted the Army Corps of Engineers to build a sediment retention structure in order to keep the sediment in place. To keep a long story short, the first attempt lasted the extravagant span of time in a whole nine days, at which point, a small lahar destroyed it. Enter trial two. This one is now known, commonly, as the sediment dam, even though the ACE is not supposed to call it that. This one is tougher, designed to be able to hold all of the sediment behind it in the case of a soil liquefying earthquake. But this structure is filling up. As an experiment, the USACE built several structures, most notably a dozen engineered log jams, an artificial valley wall, and a box and weir system (essentially just a maze for water to get through and slow down, thus dropping sediment). We were researching the ecological impacts of these log jams, natural woody debris, and beaver dams in the Toutle sediment plain and surrounding ecosystems.

To be clear, I was just helping out. I mean, sure, it was a great experience, but I was there to assist in whatever way was needed. Before we met up, I used to joke that my role in this research was somewhere between research assistant and designated driver. Fortunately, my position was exclusively research assistant. This experience, while not connected to my school, was probably one of the most education dense period of my schooling that I have had yet. First of all, after that experience, I have thus far been the resident expert in fluvial geomorphology in almost every room I walk into. But more importantly, I learned about how to research, including sampling a location, collecting data, and investigating causes, effects, and correlations in a non-experimental fashion. While an official educational program could, in theory, support or encourage this kind of experience, schools in my area have not sanctioned such activities.

Even outside of professionally monitored research, curiosity and thought experiments can be vastly beneficial to informal education and academic success. The ability to play around with subjects where they relate to your passions is something I would fully encourage everybody to explore. Interested in ballooning? Make that part of your informal educational experience. Attach what you are learning in class (say, math class), and play with how that connects to ballooning. If your helium powered balloon is leaking at a steady rate, when will you land, and when do you need to remove weights to stall the landing, if at all? Connecting formal education to informal education and, more importantly, whatever it is that you are passionate about, gives you drive that cannot be found if you treat your education like the path to a finish line.