What an awesome day we had in 4th grade today! Right after specials, we got on our rain boots and old sneakers, gathered our equipment, and headed out to Mill Creek at Webster Park. Our class, Mrs. Coene's class, and Ms. Hanson's class did three different tasks today. One group went with Mrs. Coene. Their job was to gather macro-invertebrates to bring back to school. They needed buckets and nets to get what they needed! A second group worked with me. My group collected the following data: water temperature, water pH, levels of nitrates and phosphates, stream depth, stream width, clarity of the water, and flow rate of the stream. We used LabQuest sensors, a clarity tube, meter stick, and string to help us measure those things. The last group broke into smaller groups with Ms. Hanson, Mrs. Richardson, and a number of parents, to complete visual surveys of the area around the stream. It is important to record information about what is in and around the stream, to help us draw our conclusions about the health of the water in that stream. These groups walked the length of the stream right to where it met Lake Ontario. One of the neat things we saw was the salmon that were working their way upstream!
This afternoon, we carefully went through our stream samples of water to identify the different macro-invertebrates we collected. Some macro-invertebrates are very sensitive to pollution, so if we find a large number of those macros, we can conclude that the water in that stream has little amounts of pollution. The students had a super time searching for macros, and sharing their findings with the others. Our next step is to post all of our data to our Stream Team Wiki, and analyze what we found!
Today was a great day of learning! I would like to thank Mr. Egerton, Mrs. Willmott, and Mrs. Kidane for joining us today. We couldn't have done it without you! Enjoy the rest of the week!!
Mrs. Burns
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