Praxis Course: Data in Action
Semester: Spring 2026
Faculty Advisor/Professor: Jennifer Sporer, Liv Raddatz
Community Partner: The Discovery Center
Praxis Site Supervisor: Bria Wimberly
Praxis Poster:
DSCI 310 Olivia_Crolle_Data in Action PRAXIS
Further Context:
The Discovery Center is part of the National Audubon Society through Audubon Mid-Atlantic, a non-profit dedicated to preserving and protecting birds across Maryland, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia through habitat maintenance. The Discovery Center is a space for visitors to engage with nature in a productive, educational way. It is all centered around the abandoned drinking water reservoir in the East Park. The East Park Reservoir is a shallow, closed-system body of water. Only 6-8 feet in depth, it is especially vulnerable and unable to cope with toxic algal blooms, which occur more frequently throughout the fall and summer months. These blooms can decrease the level of oxygen in the water and block out the sun, harming the over seven species of fish that reside in the reservoir. This has further harmful effects as birds that consume fish or even just have prolonged exposure to the blooms can be impacted by them. We were put in touch with Bria Wimberly to complete the coding on a water sensor that would monitor the conditions of the reservoir to predict and eventually prevent algal blooms in order to protect the park and the birds that the center is dedicated to.
Olivia’s work on this project involved keeping in communication with our contact at the Discovery Center: writing update emails, scheduling Zoom meetings, and delegating tasks. She acted as the go between for project progress, and ensured that the group met the proper deadlines. She was also in charge of part of the final deliverable: the infographic. She ensured that the product closely resembled the Discovery Center website, in order to maintain aesthetic consistency. She kept in mind what she learned in class about data visualization and presentation. The infographic will be displayed for the sake of visitors to the Discovery Center, who likely have very little or no exposure to the information. So, it had to be clear and informative in
general terms that could be easily understood. It also had to be visually engaging, which she achieved using the already contrasting colors of the Audubon Society website. She is happy with the clean, professional look that she achieved on Canva, and hopes that the infographic will be useful to the Discovery Center and its visitors. She learned a lot during this project, especially regarding the importance of frequent, transparent communication. Olivia enjoyed creating an infographic that was both informative and in line with the Discovery Center’s current graphic
design. She knows that she has come away with a lot of new and strengthened skills that will be valuable elsewhere, such as project management, graphic design, and communication.
For this project Eden was in charge of setting up the sensor coding, calibration and wiring. She worked on code provided from a previous intern, and made sure it successfully set up the sensors. The code was composed of four sections. The basic set up for the mayfly sensor and connection to Monitor my Watershed, and the set up for each of the three sensors. She had to rewrite most of the code, as there were some wiring issues which involved rebuilding the mayfly and changing the modes of connection. The coding involved using outlines provided by each of the sensor’s companies, and changing the variables to the actual sensor set up. She then had to write code to calibrate the PH and DO sensors and perform the calibration. She then compared the calibrated values to BMC Geology equipment to ensure they were providing accurate information. She also had to write a custom class for the DO sensor. There is no library provided by Mayfly to send this type of DO sensor data to Monitor my Watershed, so she had to make a
class which allowed it to do so.
Shalom focused on making the data from the Discovery Center’s sensors easier to access and use. Instead of relying on manually downloading files from Monitor My Watershed, she figured out how the platform retrieves its data behind the scenes and built a script that automatically pulls this information and converts it into a CSV file. This creates a foundation for
a live-updating dataset that can later be used for graphs, analysis, or integration into the website. One of the more interesting challenges was that the data wasn’t directly available through a simple link. Shalom explored the site’s network activity to understand how the data was being
requested and then replicate that process in Python. Since there wasn’t much real sensor data available at first, she tested the approach using sample datasets to make sure everything worked. Shalom also explored ways to display the data on the Discovery Center website. While
embedding graphs directly into Squarespace wasn’t possible, she found a workaround by linking to the live graphs hosted on Monitor My Watershed. This still allows visitors to view up-to-date information in a simple and accessible way. Working with her team also showed she the value of
collaboration and communication