In Upstate NY, we have been relatively confined to measuring data on our local streams and rivers. But climate change has no boundaries. As situations unfold across the globe, putting millions of people and ecosystems at risk, we can't help but wonder: What could be different with faster and more plentiful data? ConservationXLabs highlights the urgency for better marine ecosystem monitoring, an area that is much less understood today by scientists. Measuring marine environments would likely require some ruggedizing of our device, but many of the same sensors we use in freshwater would carry over.

As wildfires unfold across the globe, we wonder what kinds of sensors could help predict and slow their spread. We have been thinking about measuring things like humidity, temperature, wind direction and wind speed (We like the name Pyrometric). We imagine that these would be able to aid in the prevention, prediction and fighting of forest fires.

Our project has shown us how interconnected the natural world is. We hope that our device can aid in understanding of how various parts of the environment affect each other as a step towards limiting the impact humans have on our natural world.