In
October, 1999, Ms. Susan Lewis, from the Washington State
University Environmental Education Center, came to our
classroom to teach us how you can use samples of
macroinvertebrates to decide the quality of pond water.
Macroinvertebrates are insects. Click here to learn more
about macroinvertebrates. She
used the overhead projector to show us what
macroinvertebrates looked liked. We
learned that some macroinvertebrates, like caddis flies,
stone flies, and mayflies are very sensitive to pollution.
Other macroinvertebrates are somewhat sensitive to pollution
and others are tolerant of pollution. Ms.
Lewis showed us the tools you use to sample
macroinvertebrates. She
showed us the D-net that you use to collect
macroinvertebrates from the pond.
Ms.
Lewis showed us the tools you use to sample
macroinvertebrates. She
showed us the D-net that you use to collect
macroinvertebrates from the pond. She
showed us the eyedropper tool you can use to collect
macroinvertebrates.
The
day after Ms. Lewis came to our classroom for a lesson on
macro invertebrates, we met her at Sunnyside Pond to look at
the water for macroinvertebrates. She
and her team had work stations with all the tools we needed
to look for and identify macroinvertebrates. Our
tools included: white
plastic tubs
with pond water plastic
ice cube trays
for collecting insects turkey
basters
to pick up and move the insects from the plastic tub to the
trays tweezers
to pick up and move insects to the trays rulers
for measuring insects magnifying
glasses
to look closely at insects misting
bottles
to keep the insects wet while we looked at
them identification
charts
to figure out what insects we had in the pond
We
worked in small groups at the stations to do our
macroinvertebrate science. We
used the baster to collect the insects we wanted to look
at.
We
used tweezers to move the insects from the plastic tub of
water into the trays so we could look at them
closely. Here
is one of the trays with insects.
We
kept misting the insects while they were in the trays so
they wouldn't get dry.
We
used a magnifying glass to look closely at the
insects.
We
measured the insects and used identification keys to help us
decide what insects we had in the pond. We
made data notes of what we found using writing and pencil
sketches.
From
our data notes, we discovered that we had the following
insects in the pond water: mayflies stone
flies caddis
flies These
insects can only survive in unpolluted water. This means we
have clean water in the pond!!! We
also found midge larvae and back swimmers in the pond
water. We
gave Mr. Davis a report about the clean pond
water. We
will keep sampling the water several times during the school
year to see what macroinvertebrates are living at the pond
and to see if the pond water stays clean.
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