Manistee grad makes impact during summer internship - Manistee News Advocate

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SCOTTVILLE — After Alora Sundbeck graduated from Manistee High School in May, it did not take long for her to start making a difference.

Sundbeck — a fifth-year student of West Shore Community College's Academy of Science Mathematics and Technology Early College program — shared her experiences as an intern of the Portage Lake Watershed Council with the West Shore Community College Board of Trustees during the November meeting on Monday.

"What they want to do is basically keep the watershed clean, keep the lake good, and so my job in all of this was to monitor two trout streams that flow into Portage Lake," Sundbeck said. "I was chosen for this internship because of my interest in environmental science and my ability to work independently."

Sundbeck said she monitored the health of the watershed by seeing what plants and aquatic creatures were present.

"Usually I went every 10 days to go and survey the different plants in the area, see what's in bloom, and then also to take pictures, which is always fun," she said. "And then once a month — so June, July and August — I did macroinvertebrate sampling, which is just going through, collecting the bugs that are in the stream and seeing how many there are of each species."

Sundbeck said the health of a stream can be discerned by seeing what and how many are present.

"I'd be in the stream, I had a net, I moved it around, got all the macroinvertebrates in there and dumped it into a bucket. I had this tray that I dumped the bucket into and I had to use tweezers to pluck out the macroinvertebrates that are smaller than my pinky fingernail," she said. "... I would sort them into an egg carton by different species. That was a lot of work, but in the end it really paid off. With macroinvertebrates you can tell a lot by the different species that are in a stream — whether it's more polluted or if it's healthy."

Sundbeck plans on going to Michigan Technological University after finishing at WSCC to major in biological sciences with a focus on plant biology. She said she enjoyed seeing what plants could be found in the watershed.

"My favorite plant that I found — because I love plants — was a liverwort. It's called snakewort," she said. "... The snakewort is just really small, on the ground, and when you feel it, it feels like snakeskin. We had never identified snakewort at any of my West Shore classes and when I brought it in, the identifying process was just really cool."

Sundbeck's hard work will also go toward helping students at Onekama Consolidated Schools.

"All of the data that I created this past summer is going into a new curriculum for sixth and seventh graders in the science classroom at Onekama Schools," Sundbeck said. "I just think that's awesome that I'm able to contribute to a classroom that's going to learn from what I did."

Board chair Sherry Wyman said it was nice to see a WSCC student making such a big impact.

"It's truly incredible to see that progression and know that what you did and spent all that time and work on is going to be used in a curriculum," Wyman said.

Sundbeck said becoming a college student in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic caused some anxiety, but the college went to great lengths to make the transition a smooth one.

"So I came in ... the first year back in person, and starting college at that time was a whole new experience. My professors really helped me feel safe with enforcing the uniform mask mandate. I felt safe and it kept me safe," she said. "They also addressed different aspects of the vaccine — the science side, but then also what I didn't expect was the ethics side and all that surrounding the vaccine. That really made me confident in getting it myself."

Sundbeck said the passion of West Shore's professors motivates her to do her best.

"In high school I was a normal student. I was pretty average, but now that I'm at West Shore I'm a straight-A student because their drive just affects me so much," she said. "It makes me want to go above and beyond what I was doing before, because I actually care a lot more about what I'm learning."

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Manistee grad makes impact during summer internship - Manistee News Advocate

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