The University of Akron Field Station is located on the 411-acre Bath Nature Preserve in northeastern Ohio. It promotes a better understanding of our relationship with the natural environment through research, education, and service. Students, faculty, and Bath community members have been working for some time to gather long-term, baseline data on water quality, biological diversity, and climate of the preserve. Project administrators have chosen to use the NexSens WQData web datacenter as a solution to help manage this long-term data. In addition, Dr. Jessica Hopkins from the University of Akron has spearheaded a project to set up four real-time water quality and stream flow monitoring sites within the nature preserve. WQData allows researchers to compare this real-time data with historical data on a single, web-based user interface. This valuable information will improve monitoring capacities within the Cuyahoga Valley watershed and provide a better understanding of the overall environment.

For more than 50 years, the Powdermill Nature Reserve has been dedicated to a mission of research, education, and preservation. This is accomplished through a wide variety of educational programs offered at the Florence Lockhart Nimick Nature Center. Scientists monitor and study changes in the reserve’s local ecology and wildlife populations. The site has served as a refuge for many plants and animals, which, as a result of habitat destruction, are becoming increasingly rare in the region. Ground was broken in 2006 to expand the center and its educational value through a $3.5 million Sustainable Facilities Development Project. The expansion is designed to provide an educational opportunity for visitors to understand green construction and how it can benefit construction projects. One component of the expansion is a “Marsh Machine” that processes all wastewater at the center.