Merrill Creek Field Writing

Merrill Creek Studies

This is our third year studying aquatic insects.  The two sites we go to are Merrill Creek, a few miles away, and Conrad Creek which is on our school campus. 

We use large kicknets and small hand nets to catch aquatic insects.  We put them in a tub of water so we can observe them.  Next, we take a microscope or a magnifying glass to look at them up close so we can identify them by order.  We use an aquatic insect key book to identify them.  Some of the insects we preserve in small glass bottles for our classroom collection, and some we let go.  (by Joey Jackson)

Stoneflies, Order  Plecoptera
by Joey Jackson

There are different types of stoneflies:  little brown, little yellow, little green, golden, and giant.  Stoneflies have a finger-like gill underneath the base of their legs or thorax.  Stoneflies eat mostly plants.  You can find stoneflies in fast moving streams. 

Stoneflies hatch from eggs, then the nymphs hide in piles of leaves, rocks, and sticks along creek banks.  It takes a brown stonefly nymph up to four years to become an adult!  Nymph and adult stoneflies can grow up to 2 inches long. 

SCIENTIFIC STUDIES DONE AT MERRILL CREEK
by Misti Gayle

      The dissolved oxygen (D.O.)/temperature group use a chemical kit to find the D.O. of the creek and they take the creek's temperature.  The D.O. in Merrill Creek is 12-14 p.p.m. (parts per million) This shows that Merrill Creek is healthy.

     In the stream flow/hobo temp group, we measure the stream width and the stream flow.  In the late Spring we launch the hobo temp and in the late Fall we retrieve it and download the information onto a laptop computer.  Grant, an 8th grader, likes working with the hobo temp group.  "My favorite part is 
downloading all the info."

     The Hobo Temp Group also records the creek's temperature all summer long. every 15 minutes - 1 hour)  This information is put into a data base to be used for future restoration studies.

MERRILL CREEK Q & A

1.How often does the hobo temp record the temp?....Every 15 mins-1 hour

2.What is done with the collected information?.....It is put into a data base to be used for future restoration studies

3.Why is the info collected?.....
Water temperature is very important to all the aquatic organisms and the growth of the plants depend on a certain water temperature

CLASS OPINIONS 
OF MERRILL CREEK

Jesse: I  like finding aquatic insects,
especially when I find the insect megaloptera.

Chelsea: I like finding the d.o.  The highest I know of was 13 p.p.m.

Heather: I like wearing the waiters because when you sit in the water you don't get wet.

Tianna: I like finding aquatic insects.  I was excited when I found water penny insects!

Misti:  I like wearing waiters in the water and filling them  up!
                          by Misti Gayle

Conrad Creek Studies


     Our class has fun learning about water testing and other related things when we go down to Conrad Creek.  The creek is located  on our school grounds, along the nature trail.  The creek, which empties into the Klamath River, comes from the mountain behind our school.  It goes under the road, then through a culvert before coming out down by the nature trail.  The name of the creek comes from my Grandma and Grampa, whose last name is Conrad. They used to own all of this land(20 acres), including the creek, until they donated all but two acres.

     Each month when we get down to the creek we check the level of dissolved oxygen in the water and measure the volume  of the water pumping through (per second).  We also count the number of aquatic insects (species diversity) and check the temperature of the water.  I thought the most exciting project we did once by the creek was when we tracked for animal footprints.  The most footprints were of a Gray Fox and  Deer Mice.  The Deer Mice prints were all over!  To get the prints we used soot, white paper and bait.  The animals had to walk through the soot and then the white paper in order to get the bait. 
                                                                                      (Travis Gayle)
 
 

WHAT WE LEARNED AT CONRAD CREEK:

TIANNA H.:  I learned about dissolved oxygen.

MISTI G.:  I liked learning about puff-puff salamanders.

GRANT P.:  I found out the creek was named after real people here.

JESSE F.:  I learned about water temperature and how to find the oxygen level of water.

AJA C.:  I liked learning about mayflies and other aquatic insects.

CODY C.:  I learned the scientific name for aquatic insects.

JOEY J:  I learned what a stonefly looks like.

PHIL T.: I liked learning about animal footprints and how to set up the boxes.

CHELSEA G.:  I enjoyed learning about the puff-puff salamanders.

COLEOPTERA     by Cody Conrad

     One of the insects we found on the creek is the Coleoptera.  This bug is really a beetle.  Beetles have adapted to many different environments.  Some spend all their lives in water;
some only spend the juvenile stage in the water.  There are two different larvae: the worm and the penny larvae.  One of our local beetles is the water penny.  It can grow half an inch in diameter and an eight of an inch in height.  There are over one thousand species of beetles that spend their larvae stage in the water. 
 
 

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