Intern Morgan Thomas: Get to know me, how I chose my major

Hokendauqua Creek in Northampton County, PA. Image taken by Nicholas A. Tonelli.

My name is Morgan and I am one of the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association’s interns for this summer! I am an Ecology and Environmental Sciences double major at Susquehanna University. I am also on my school’s swim team, involved in an outdoors club, and work at my campus garden. As an introduction, I thought I would go into detail about what drove me to want a career in protecting and advocating for the environment.

The first environmentally-focused class I took was AP Environmental Science in my senior year of high school. At the start of the class, I was still unsure of what my college major would be. I remember one of the first labs we did in the class was a stream study at Hokendauqua Creek in my hometown of Northampton, PA.

We measured the stream’s width, depth, velocity and volume of flow and performed various chemical tests. But what I was most excited about was macroinvertebrate sampling.

We tallied the collected macroinvertebrates and placed them in categories of sensitive, somewhat sensitive, and tolerant after identifying them. This method allowed us to get a general sense of the stream’s health as the amount of species present in each of the three categories was used to calculate an index value. These three values were added to get a total index value, which indicated that the water in the studied section of the creek was fair on a scale of excellent to poor quality.

Although my time in this class was cut short due to COVID-19, it left such a lasting impact on me. Studying macroinvertebrates during our stream analysis was one of the first examples I had seen in the field of how different species can indicate ecosystem health.

It made me realize I wanted a career in the environmental field as it opened my eyes to the severity of environmental issues, including point source and non-point source pollution. I better understood the connections of environmental issues with different types of industries and more. Most importantly, the class pushed me to want to become a part of making change.

Now having completed my first year of college, I see how fulfilling working in the environmental field truly is. From the courses I have taken so far, I have a much stronger appreciation for nature by being able to understand what is around me.
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It excites me that I have learned so much in my two semesters. Seeing the care and passion my classmates have for the environment not only motivates me, but it also gives so much hope for the future of environmental education, advocacy, and action. I am so excited to express my passion through working with the MSRKA, my university, and in my future career!