Three Ways You Can Help Build Up the World’s Freshwater Laboratory

Every day I spend in the chemistry laboratory of IISD Experimental Lakes Area—the world’s freshwater laboratory—I am grateful to work at a world-class scientific facility in the middle of Canada’s boreal forest.

 

I am proud to lead a dedicated team of chemists and freshwater scientists in our chemistry laboratory, who process the samples from a wide range of projects on topics such as oil spills, eutrophication, climate change, and more.

 

 

Back in 2014 when I joined the team, the site had just become an entity independent of the federal government that is free to set its own research and outreach portfolios. With that freedom, we unfortunately lost access to laboratory space and instrumentation in Winnipeg with which we used to process non-perishable samples in the winter.

 

Our standards are high, so we adapted by conducting an inter-laboratory comparison to identify a third-party laboratory that could ensure the integrity of our data. Unfortunately, this comes at a substantial financial cost, as well as the lost opportunity to provide additional analytical training to our team of emerging chemists and freshwater scientists.

 

There is, however, a way to build up our own capacity in our chemistry laboratory.

 

There are some new instruments that would save us a significant amount of time and money, open up new areas of research, ensure the integrity of our data and long-term ecological research program, and enrich the learning experience of the students who work in the lab.

 

With the MT-100, we can take one sample and automate the analysis of alkalinity, conductivity, pH, and turbidity, all of which are regularly sampled and analyzed for many of our projects and long-term environmental monitoring program.

 

 

In fact, it has many useful functions that would allow us to work more efficiently and allow us to keep up with the increasing number of projects at IISD-ELA. It can do two or more titrations in a single sample cup, requires a small sample size (15 ml), and can handle up to 400 samples per run.

 

This is where YOU come in.

 

If we raise $50,000 by the end of December, we can build up the capacity of our chemistry and fish laboratories by buying an MT-100, along with two more instruments. A Microcentrifuge and Hematocrit rotor would allow us to analyze fish blood on site, opening exciting new research possibilities for us, and an Auto Analyzer 3 – phosphorus channel, which will allow us to analyze samples for phosphorus and nitrogen at the same time, thereby increasing sample capacity and saving valuable staff time.

 

AND, thanks to MANTECH, every dollar you donate to building up our labs will be doubled.

 

Yep, that’s right. Every dollar becomes two! I wish all my investments were that lucrative.

 

I hope I can rely on you to help build up our labs!

 

We are thrilled to announce that this campaign to raise $50,000 to build up our lab with three critical pieces of equipment was a great success.

 

In fact, thanks to 192 generous donors, we raised $60,610.35 and are now excitedly waiting to receive and unbox these three new instruments.

 

We have said it before, and we will say it again, we couldn’t do it with you.

 

A massive thanks to all our generous donors and supporters