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A rising high-school junior joined water-quality intern Katrina Borgen for an introduction to all things Swim Guide last week.

Sarah Cvetko, a Raleigh resident summering in Oriental, shadowed Kat last Thursday, collecting water samples at Cowpen Landing and processing the samples in the New Bern lab. On Friday, Sarah learned how to read the results and delved into some of Kat’s summer Sound Rivers’ projects.

“She’s trying to get a feel for what she may enjoy within the scientific fields,” Kat said. “Sarah was a pleasure to work with, and it was great to get to share some knowledge about the environmental field and just college in general. I wish I would have taken initiative like that when I was in high school!”

Swim Guide is a volunteer-driven, international water-quality program that Sound Rivers coordinates for the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico. Every week, water samples are taken at 52 popular recreational sites from the Piedmont to the Pamlico Sound and are tested for the presence of bacteria. Results are released every Friday via text alerts, on soundrivers.org, Public Radio East, various other media outlets and through Sound Rivers’ Facebook and Instagram accounts, @soundriversnc.

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