Report #2 from Student Citizen Scientists

Wyatt H’s Report:

 

On Feb 18, 2014 my yellow science class went on a field trip to Hyla Woods, in Oregon. We departed early at 8:00 AM. When we got there we went to our site (the farthest upstream) and started our testing. We did many tests like Dissolved oxygen, which is the oxygen in the water, PH, which measures the acid levels in the stream, turbidity which is a measure of how clear or cloudy the water is, and last but most definitely not least, the aquatic invertebrate test, but you may wonder how we did it. Well… we made these organic leaf packs and put them in netting and placed them in the water. We left after doing all of our tests and came back a couple weeks later on Feb 27, 2014. Both times we went it was rainy and windy, with temperatures, as low as 16ºC. We retrieved the leaf packs and did all the tests again, and we examined the leaf packs the next week. We found some aquatic invertebrate, but not a lot. We had 1 mayfly, 2 stoneflies, 2 common netspinners, 3 craneflies, and 5 crayfish. You would think they are big, but Woah are they small.

When we went to the woods, we had one essential question that we were trying to answer over the period of time, “How can we tell if an ecosystem healthy?” This is a super important question because if an ecosystem isn’t healthy, many things can die, like wildlife, bacteria, and algae. Who wants to have an ecosystem with zero animals, zero plant life, and zero living organisms but trees? I know I wouldn’t, so we are trying to find out is Hyla Woods is healthy, which leads into the next section.

In Hyla Woods, we examined the Lousignout Creek, and here is some of the data that our class collected:

The first time we went:

Air Temp: N/A

Water Temp: N/A

PH: 6

DO: 8.75

Turbidity: 18

 

The last time we went:

Air Temp:16ºC

Water Temp:9ºC

PH: 6.5

DO: 6

Turbidity: 20

And here is the aquatic Vertebrate data we collected:

What we collected:1 mayfly, 2 stoneflies, 2 common netspinners, 3 craneflies, and 5 crayfish.

EPT Ranking: 38

Biotic Index: 4.97

All this together means that the ecosystem is pretty healthy, because the mayflies, and stoneflies are sensitive macro invertebrate, and so that means the water must have to be very clean for it to have life by stonefly, and mayfly. Also the PH is in the 6 to 6.5 range, so it is very close to neutral, but kind of acidic. The DO, means that there is some DO in the water, but the first time we went there was a lot of DO (8.75) The turbidity was pretty low, which meant the water was pretty turbid, and that may have affected the health of the submerged plant life, algae, macro invertebrate eggs, and may have caused floating things to get caught in the gills of animals. So all in all, Lousignout Creek is pretty clean, except for the turbid water.