Math Mind Monday: Environmental Scientist

We all know that there are so many career's out there! What we fail to realize is the amount of Math involved in almost everything we do. I have decided to dedicate Monday's to getting to know those Math Mind's out there and help identify some very fun careers that use Math every day. 

Our first Math Mind is Emily. Emily is an Environmental Scientist for the Colorado State government. She holds a bachelor's degree in ecology and a master’s degree in environmental science. Listen to what Emily had to say about using Math in her career!  

"At work, I use math every day in some way or another. For example, I collect soil samples from different areas and test them for pollution in the soil. For a project site, I take the results from multiple soil samples and average them together to get a representative sample of the area. If pollution is too high, then we clean up that area so it’s safe for all of us.

The state government also collects all kinds of environmental data. Data on air pollution, recycling, water quality and many other environmental topics. In order to make sense of all this information, I use statistics to help organize and interpret data. Statistics is a type of math that’s used all the time in the environmental field, it’s great for understanding and analyzing data sets.

Math is a huge part of my career as an Environmental Scientist and has become one of my favorite parts of the job. It’s not always easy but learning math now, will really help you in the future! Be patient, work hard and you might just find yourself having fun while doing math!" (Emily, personal communication, September 17th, 2018) 

Check back in next Monday to learn about a new career and meet a fellow Math Mind!