This piece showcases the secret underwater life of aquatic macroinvertebrates. In the format of a panel design, this piece will be fabricated into a mounted sign adjacent to a hiking trail by a freshwater stream in the Alpine area of Italy. My goal is to educate hikers passing about Dr. Alberto Scotti’s research studying these macroinvertebrates and what we can learn from them.

 

I used acrylic paint on multi-media paper to depict the two macroinvertebrates on the sign, as well as the habitat and the cow (bruna alpina). To assemble everything, I scanned and imported my paintings into Adobe 

Illustrator, and designed the rest of the panel using this program. The sections describe what macroinvertebrates are, where they live, what we can learn from them, as well as the impact of agriculture and hydropower.

 

By studying the kinds of macroinvertebrates in different ecosystems, we can then assess how certain anthropogenic factors, such as agriculture and hydropower, are influencing the environment.