Biology Canoe Trip

The Water Quality SPLASH grant that I wrote (and won) this year has really paid off in student learning experiences.

SPLASH grants are competitively awarded water resource education grants funded by the Southwest Florida Water Management District or "SWFWMD".

Recently, my tiny biology class of 6 kids went on a canoe trip down the Waccasassa River to look for macroinvertebrates and test the water quality.

We had a great time and the kids learned a lot about rivers ... and themselves ... on this trip.

One of the things we did was survey the river inhabitants to see what they could tell us about the water quality.



We found vertebrates like this hogchoker sole in shallow, clear running areas.




Every rock or submerged log held a wealth of macroinvertebrates like this nymph




Although it wasn't in my grant proposal, we all stopped to pull trash and litter out of the river as we drifted downstream. I didn't have to tell the kids to do this, they just did it.




The school has 6 good canoes and we only needed 3 on this trip since the class has only 6 students.  I took my kayak along as the "Teacher Mobile".
In the picture above I have loaded up with former river litter that I pulled from bank and bottom.




The next day, we sorted all of the river litter into separate categories.




The data showed an abundance of recyclable aluminum cans had been removed from the river.

 I wish I could show you the neat pictures of kids paddling canoes, portaging canoes, but I don't post recognizable pictures of my students online. You might see their hands here at PF, but not their smiling faces.

This is no easy river, shallow here, deep there, twisty like a rat snake eating a mouse, and loaded with logjams and obstacles to steer around or climb over.

It was fun to watch each team of two maneuver their canoe as obstacle after obstacle popped up around every bend.

The weather was great, the kids learned more about water quality testing, the water quality itself seemed very good according to our tests, and we left the river a little cleaner than we found it.

And we had fun ... did I mention that part?

Memorial Day ... Remembering A Horse Lover

Note to reader: I posted this several years ago on Pure Florida, but I thought I would share it for new readers on this Memorial Day ...

He was a quiet kid who came to my class in mid-year and it took a while to get to know him. As the tall, shy, new guy he did not actively participate in my science class at first.
Then one day, I mentioned miniature horses in a discussion on genetics.
Pop!
His eyes lit up and he spoke!


It turned out that miniature horses were his family's business. His dad worked on a nearby, well-known mini-horse ranch and they lived on site.
He stayed after the bell rang and we talked about the tiny, trendy little horses. I learned a lot that day... about tiny horses and about "the new kid".

After that, he spoke up more in class and gradually become more comfortable in his new surroundings.
Somewhere, in the next year or so, his family moved again and I lost track of him...until the article in the paper.

Another local soldier had died in Iraq. He left behind a wife and child. The picture on the page, the name...they seemed familiar.
 I had to dig back in my memory. I had to dig all the way back to 1990 ...

It was him.

He was older, in his 30's, but the more I looked at the man in uniform, the more I remembered.

It's funny how the brain works. Once I realized that this was the "horse kid", the images and conversations with him came rushing back even though we had crossed paths so briefly and so long ago.


On this Memorial Day, I'm remembering a tall, quiet kid who loved tiny horses.

New Home Hermit Crab Style

Last week, the hermit crab in our school lab decided he needed a new home.

He did this right in the middle of an invasion of first and second grade kids that were touring our lab as part of a special "meet your penpal day".

They were delighted of course.

DOLPHINS STEAL THE SHOW ON THE MARINE SCIENCE FIELD TRIP

This year's final Cedar Key School  Marine Science field trip was awesome enough ... perfect weather, great students, a swell boat, beautiful island ... and then the dolphins showed up.

Just a reminder that sometimes, when you think things have hit the top of the AWESOME-O-METER, there might be more to come.

Enjoy some delphinidaedelightidae.

It's free here at Pure Florida.

Awesome Things In The Email: Cedar Key From The Air ... Thanks Justin!

One of the wonderful things about blogging, is the occasional email or other bit of awesomeness that a reader shares with me.

One of those moments happened recently when I opened an email from Justin, a US Navy Rescue Swimmer.

Justin wrote:

"I think I have read in one or two previous posts that you are from the Cedar Key area. I was flying in that area today, and I snapped a few aerial pictures and wanted to share them with you. You can use these anyway you wish, or not at all. I took these from the back of a SH-60B Seahawk, which is the Navy's variant of the Army Blackhawk. I am an Sensor Operator/Rescue Swimmer and am blessed with the chance to fly all over this beautiful state! I like to take as many pictures as I can and show as many people as I can, because I am sure there are some non-believers out there that disagree with this state having some of the most natural beauty of them all."

These are all Justin's photos of Cedar Key from his helicopter.
My only input is a little cropping and some labels for those of you who have never been here.

Our airport ... not a lot of room for pilot error here.

Here's my little corner of Cedar Key. I park my JEEP directly in front of that water tower every workday. The school is right across the street.

... and yes, I am aware of how lucky I am to do that.

Thank you Justin, for your service to our country and for the great photos and letter!

Wild Waccasassa River Field Trip

 

Last week, I took my Cedar Key Environmental Science students on a field trip to measure the water quality of the Waccasassa River.

 

A year ago, I wrote (and won!) a SPLASH grant from the SouthWest Florida Water Management District ... aka "SWFWMD".



This 1300.00 grant funded the purchase of water quality testing equipment as well as paying for substitute teachers, bus drivers, and other assorted field trip costs.

 

THANK YOU SWFWMD!

 

None of this would have happened without the SPLASH grant program.

 

Our individual classroom budget this year was $75.

 

So, you see the challenge for teachers and their kids...

 

This post is about the field trip though, so let's put education funding aside for a minute.

 

At test site number two, the boat ramp on the Waccasassa River, we encountered a starving "Deer Dog".

If you are reading this outside of Florida, "deer dogs" are used to hunt deer ... an alien concept in most states, but one still practiced here.
It's a holdover from long ago subsistence hunting in the thick Florida brush.  I'm pro-hunting, but I'm not a fan of dog hunting for deer ... but I digress.

The dog, who the kids immediately named, "Larry" (due to the owner's name on the brass collar plate) was as sweet as he could be ... which is pretty amazing considering his emaciated desperate state.

We had already eaten lunch, but the kids found a honey bun and fed it to Larry. He inhaled it in one quick gulp.
They called the number on his collar, as did I, but we only got a busy signal.
Finally, I called the animal shelter and gave them the info needed to help Larry.

Larry hung with us the whole time while the kids tested the lower Waccasassa River for dissolved oxygen (DO), ammonia, phosphates, and nitrates.

At this site, the DO was good (8ppm) and all the pollutant tests turned up negative ... no measurable amounts.

Our test kits use ampules filled with a reagent. By snapping the tip of the sealed glass ampule in a water sample, the reagent mixes with the sample (which is pulled into the ampule).

The ampule containing the water sample and the reagent is then compared to a color comparator to find the best match, which corresponds to a particular quantity in parts per million (ppm).

In the picture above, no color change occurred, so the amount of ammonia was recorded as "less than 1ppm".

At our first site, the US-19 bridge over the Waccasassa River at Gulf Hammock, the kids waded in a much narrower section of the river, farther upstream from the boat ramp. Here, they performed the same chemical tests, again with no pollutants measured and good DO levels.

This narrow ... 20 foot wide portion of the river was knee deep, clear, and rocky ... perfect for learning about using macroinvertebrates to help determine the quality of water.
The concept is simple, some critters can handle poor water quality while others require excellent water quality to survive.

Our job was to survey the river for biological indicators and come to some conclusion based on what we found.

Blah, blah, blah ... that's the science part of it, the fun part of it was they got to wade in a beautiful Florida stream, looking under rocks and logs for critters, dipnetting, and generally treasure hunting.

They had a printout of typical macroinverts and a lab sheet to fill out as they "worked" ... and they did an excellent job.

We found mayfly larvae, damselfly larvae,stonefly larvae, hellgrammites, freshwater clams, grass shrimp, gambusia, apple snails, ramshorn snails, and a leech ... well, the leech found one of my students.

Hellgrammite

("Wrath of Khan ... Chekov's ear ... you feel me?)

A katydid nymph showed up and felt so at home on this young lady's finger that she left her a little gift.

A female grass shrimp with her precious load of eggs attached beneath her abdomen.

I love these little shrimps ... this one went right back in the water to continue her important mission.

 

These are apple snail eggs.
We brought home 3 apple snails and placed them in an aquaculture tank and two days later we had eggs on the side of the tank, so we are raising apple snails now in our Cedar Key School AquaLab.

In a neat little bit of serendipity, this couple in the boat were launching at the same spot on US-19 as we arrived earlier that morning.
They were very friendly and as they passed by, we had a conversation, each wondering what the other was up to.

The man in the water has a permit to harvest the aquarium plant Anacharis. When we first talked, he had an empty boat and was heading downstream. The picture above is as he was returning from his harvesting efforts.

I think he was surprised that we knew what "anacharis" was, but we grow it back at the lab, so my kids instantly knew what he was seeking.

It's little things like this, the unexpected things, ... that make a field experience memorable ... watching a bunch of kids search their lunch bags to feed a starving dog, meeting a person making a living in way you might not have imagined, and later in the day ... watching my students' expression as when they first glimpsed a giant, 906 year old cypress tree in Goethe State Forest.

As far as the water quality of the Waccasassa River, based on this one expedition, it's very good.

No measurable Ammonia, Nitrates, or Phosphates.
Good Dissolved Oxygen levels.

The Macroinvertebrate survey data showed more of the "intolerant to poor water quality" species than those who tolerate poor water quality conditions.

That's what we were hoping for, ... after all, the Waccasassa River empties into the Gulf right next to the "Clam Farming Center Of The Universe ... Cedar Key, Florida.

We need that good water.