The Sixth Graders Take over
To show off our new found knowledge, PS # 28 hosted a "Community Day at the Reservoir" in June of 2011. Our students gave tours of the site and encouraged visitors to learn more about our project. They came home from Community Day COVERED with mosquito bites and quickly asked- How could our school achieve its goal of making the reservoir a place to relax, learn, and enjoy if visitors would be attacked by mosquitoes? Our sixth graders decided to get involved themselves.
The students knew that we needed to decrease the mosquitoes at the reservoir if it was ever going to be a useful site for the community. They headed over to the reservoir to collect water samples and examined the samples under microscopes to count the mosquito larvae in our sample. They also measured out a 20 square meter section of the reservoir, and using video, counted/estimated the number of adult mosquitoes in the swarm as 628. Combining images from Google Earth and our own observations, we estimated that the reservoir had 34 similar sized locations that would be ideal for mosquito reproduction. As a result, we multiplied our population density of 628 mosquitoes by 34 and resulted in an estimated population density of mosquitoes within the entire reservoir at 21,352 mosquitoes!
After extensive research, we decided that mosquito larvae eating fathead minnows would be the best all natural, sustainable mosquito control that we could introduce. We gathered fish tanks and an old pool and set up our Aquaculture Room in the storeroom of our school's Science Lab. Newark Museum heard about our project, and donated their old 500 gallon aquariums. Our principal offered an unused storage room in the basement as our new "Aquaculture Room #2". We got to work setting it up properly, with the Newark Museum tanks (that we had to scrub clean!), our tanks, and special grow stations that we built under lights that could stay on for hours. Now we were in business! Our Reservoir Team comes in early every day to tend to our minnows and chart our progress towards breeding and raising them. We keep data about our adventures in minnow breeding. We carefully track when and what each tank is fed, if the water was changed, the number of fish and/or eggs present, and any general observations we have. We had many challenges. In order to make sure we had a good ratio of males to female, we had to identify gender. We also had to experiment with the optimal water temperature, lighting, water aeration and oxygenation, and food source. Our initial success rate was not that great, as we only had 7 babies out of approximately 500 eggs laid. However, we now feel that we have the best conditions for reproduction, and have a large population of adult minnows ready to breed. Within the past few days we have had active reproduction, and have recovered 2 clutches of eggs.
One of our challenges led to another component of our project. When we started, we assumed the fathead minnows would eat fish food. After losing quite a number of fish, we realized that we needed a better food source...one that was similar to what the minnows would eat in the wild. Our research led us to a microorganism called paramecium. The only problem? We now had to breed them too! So our aquaculturing program expanded to include the breeding of paramecium as a food source for our fathead minnows. This means feeding the paramecium yeast and wheat germ and twice daily sampling of the tanks and examination under microscopes to check that the population is increasing.
We are also growing cattails in our greenhouse to transplant and reintroduce at the reservoir. Cattails were once plentiful there, but have slowly disappeared. Our first planting yielded no plants. For our second attempt, we altered the conditions a little and experimented with different variables. This time, out of 500 seeds, only 4 germinated. On to round 3 of cattail propagation. After cold stratification for a few days, our seed cups were placed in a partially water filled plastic container with two overhead full spectrum bulbs. We keep the containers in our science room which maintains a constant room temperature of 70 degrees. We installed a thermometer within the containers and hope that having the lights on for 18 hours heats the seed cups to 75 degrees. So far, this procedure seems to be working, as most of our cattails have sprouted and are growing steadily. They should be ready for transplanting at the reservoir later this Spring. However, through research we learned that the decline and elimination of cattails at the reservoir was due to the dominating presence of invasive phragmites. We wondered just how many phragmites might be present at the reservoir so we decided to once again conduct a population density study of the species. We sampled a squared meter section of a wetland portion of the reservoir and counted 75 phragmites flower heads. We used Google Earth to calculate the total length and width of the entire wetland section of the reservoir and used formulas we learned in Math class to arrive at a total area of 746.34 square meters. We multiplied the area by our sample population density of 75 and arrived at a total population density of phragmites flower heads at 55,976! Based on both what we've observed and a map of the reservoir, we estimated that 60% of the total area was heavily populated with phragmites. We then calculated 60% of 55,976 and got our final estimated population density of phragmites flower heads at 33,586...and this sample population was taken during the winter! We quickly realized that our baby cattails had no chance of surviving if we planted them in an area close to the phragmites. We were once again faced with another challenge. How could we protect our cattail seedlings until they were strong enough to make it on their own? Our Social Studies class provided the inspiration for finding a solution to our planting problems. We modified the Aztec idea of a chinampa, or floating garden to create our very own "Challenger Chinampa." We started with two 1/8 scaled models to run buoyancy tests and are currently building the full, 4x8, chinampas in our Aquaculture Room.
Additionally, we took the Reservoir Alliance's proposed plan for the future design of the reservoir site and created a 3D architectural model of our "ideal" reservoir using Google Sketch Up. We added new features that we envisioned for the future reservoir, including a walking path, outdoor learning lab (complete with white board and microscopes), bathrooms, fishing pier, and our chinampas). We presented our ideas to one of the Alliance members who was so impressed, he quickly made arrangements for the Alliance’s architect to meet with us to discuss our ideas, and suggested we write formal proposals detailing our ideas for submission to the full Board of the Reservoir Alliance.
We have also been working on transforming the reservoir into a place where students from the community could learn and explore. We put together a field trip guide for teachers to use. The guide includes a scavenger hunt, a lesson on water sampling, directions for filling out field trip paperwork, links to our message boards for classes to post about their experience, and a "supply box" of everything classes need for a productive day at the reservoir. We're currently collaborating with our teachers to upload actual lesson plans for the teachers to use when they visit. We were able to host PS #8, a nearby school, as our "inaugural class" at the reservoir on their field trip. We’ve also had a class of artistically talented students go on a field trip to the site to use it as the springboard for a lesson on landscape painting.
The students knew that we needed to decrease the mosquitoes at the reservoir if it was ever going to be a useful site for the community. They headed over to the reservoir to collect water samples and examined the samples under microscopes to count the mosquito larvae in our sample. They also measured out a 20 square meter section of the reservoir, and using video, counted/estimated the number of adult mosquitoes in the swarm as 628. Combining images from Google Earth and our own observations, we estimated that the reservoir had 34 similar sized locations that would be ideal for mosquito reproduction. As a result, we multiplied our population density of 628 mosquitoes by 34 and resulted in an estimated population density of mosquitoes within the entire reservoir at 21,352 mosquitoes!
After extensive research, we decided that mosquito larvae eating fathead minnows would be the best all natural, sustainable mosquito control that we could introduce. We gathered fish tanks and an old pool and set up our Aquaculture Room in the storeroom of our school's Science Lab. Newark Museum heard about our project, and donated their old 500 gallon aquariums. Our principal offered an unused storage room in the basement as our new "Aquaculture Room #2". We got to work setting it up properly, with the Newark Museum tanks (that we had to scrub clean!), our tanks, and special grow stations that we built under lights that could stay on for hours. Now we were in business! Our Reservoir Team comes in early every day to tend to our minnows and chart our progress towards breeding and raising them. We keep data about our adventures in minnow breeding. We carefully track when and what each tank is fed, if the water was changed, the number of fish and/or eggs present, and any general observations we have. We had many challenges. In order to make sure we had a good ratio of males to female, we had to identify gender. We also had to experiment with the optimal water temperature, lighting, water aeration and oxygenation, and food source. Our initial success rate was not that great, as we only had 7 babies out of approximately 500 eggs laid. However, we now feel that we have the best conditions for reproduction, and have a large population of adult minnows ready to breed. Within the past few days we have had active reproduction, and have recovered 2 clutches of eggs.
One of our challenges led to another component of our project. When we started, we assumed the fathead minnows would eat fish food. After losing quite a number of fish, we realized that we needed a better food source...one that was similar to what the minnows would eat in the wild. Our research led us to a microorganism called paramecium. The only problem? We now had to breed them too! So our aquaculturing program expanded to include the breeding of paramecium as a food source for our fathead minnows. This means feeding the paramecium yeast and wheat germ and twice daily sampling of the tanks and examination under microscopes to check that the population is increasing.
We are also growing cattails in our greenhouse to transplant and reintroduce at the reservoir. Cattails were once plentiful there, but have slowly disappeared. Our first planting yielded no plants. For our second attempt, we altered the conditions a little and experimented with different variables. This time, out of 500 seeds, only 4 germinated. On to round 3 of cattail propagation. After cold stratification for a few days, our seed cups were placed in a partially water filled plastic container with two overhead full spectrum bulbs. We keep the containers in our science room which maintains a constant room temperature of 70 degrees. We installed a thermometer within the containers and hope that having the lights on for 18 hours heats the seed cups to 75 degrees. So far, this procedure seems to be working, as most of our cattails have sprouted and are growing steadily. They should be ready for transplanting at the reservoir later this Spring. However, through research we learned that the decline and elimination of cattails at the reservoir was due to the dominating presence of invasive phragmites. We wondered just how many phragmites might be present at the reservoir so we decided to once again conduct a population density study of the species. We sampled a squared meter section of a wetland portion of the reservoir and counted 75 phragmites flower heads. We used Google Earth to calculate the total length and width of the entire wetland section of the reservoir and used formulas we learned in Math class to arrive at a total area of 746.34 square meters. We multiplied the area by our sample population density of 75 and arrived at a total population density of phragmites flower heads at 55,976! Based on both what we've observed and a map of the reservoir, we estimated that 60% of the total area was heavily populated with phragmites. We then calculated 60% of 55,976 and got our final estimated population density of phragmites flower heads at 33,586...and this sample population was taken during the winter! We quickly realized that our baby cattails had no chance of surviving if we planted them in an area close to the phragmites. We were once again faced with another challenge. How could we protect our cattail seedlings until they were strong enough to make it on their own? Our Social Studies class provided the inspiration for finding a solution to our planting problems. We modified the Aztec idea of a chinampa, or floating garden to create our very own "Challenger Chinampa." We started with two 1/8 scaled models to run buoyancy tests and are currently building the full, 4x8, chinampas in our Aquaculture Room.
Additionally, we took the Reservoir Alliance's proposed plan for the future design of the reservoir site and created a 3D architectural model of our "ideal" reservoir using Google Sketch Up. We added new features that we envisioned for the future reservoir, including a walking path, outdoor learning lab (complete with white board and microscopes), bathrooms, fishing pier, and our chinampas). We presented our ideas to one of the Alliance members who was so impressed, he quickly made arrangements for the Alliance’s architect to meet with us to discuss our ideas, and suggested we write formal proposals detailing our ideas for submission to the full Board of the Reservoir Alliance.
We have also been working on transforming the reservoir into a place where students from the community could learn and explore. We put together a field trip guide for teachers to use. The guide includes a scavenger hunt, a lesson on water sampling, directions for filling out field trip paperwork, links to our message boards for classes to post about their experience, and a "supply box" of everything classes need for a productive day at the reservoir. We're currently collaborating with our teachers to upload actual lesson plans for the teachers to use when they visit. We were able to host PS #8, a nearby school, as our "inaugural class" at the reservoir on their field trip. We’ve also had a class of artistically talented students go on a field trip to the site to use it as the springboard for a lesson on landscape painting.