September 15, 1999

On September 15, 1999, Mr. Alan Davis and Mr. Larry Fetter came to our classroom to talk with us about the new island. Mr. Davis is the Supervisor of Parks for the City of Pullman. Mr. Fetter is the Director of the City Parks and Recreation Department. We showed them our August 27 Pond Photo Journal and a digital image slide show of that trip to the pond. We talked about: planting grass seed on the island planting more shrubs on the island putting fish in the pond that the heron would like making signs asking people to help keep the pond clean and healthy

Mr. Fetter and Mr. Davis suggested that we do research by contacting the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to find out what kinds of grasses on the island would be: 1. good for nesting mallards and Canada geese and 2. would help prevent erosion of the island.   Mr. Davis said that the grass that used to be on the island was grass that the ducks like to eat! One reason the island eroded was because the ducks were eating the grass on it!! They said we should plant grasses with deep roots so water won't erode the grass. They said we should use a variety of grasses because with diverse grasses, we would would have better chance of grass plants surviving. After we had a plant list, they would help us wade out to the island to do the planting. They said we would need some parent volunteers to help. they said we would need tall rubber boots. We told them we would like to plant a yellow osier dogwood so we would have two colors of osier dogwoods on the island...red and yellow. We decided we could plant around the week of October 8 when the weather would not be hot but before the weather turned too cold.

We asked them what fish were in the pond now. They said there were fewer goldfish than there used to be. There used to be too many goldfish which wasn't good for the water. When they drained the pond to rebuild the island, they removed some of the goldfish. They asked our class to design signs to tell people not to put their pet goldfish or their pet turtles in the pond because then the pond water becomes overpopulated with fish and turtles. That is one of the reasons the pond gets overpopulated with goldfish and turtles. They also asked our class to help design signs to tell people not to feed the ducks. Bread is not healthy for the ducks and it causes the water to become polluted. Also, when people feed the ducks and geese, the ducks and geese become more aggressive. They said our class to write information about not feeding the ducks and not putting goldfish and turtles into the pond for the City of Pullman website and for their newsletter. They asked our class to write a story about their pond habitat project for the website and newsletter.

We asked Mr. Fetter and Mr. Davis about putting minnows in the pond to attract the heron. We had learned that herons like to eat flathead minnows. Mr. Fetter and Mr. Davis told us that before we could introduce any fish into the pond, we would need to get permission from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. They asked us to do more research to find out what fish could be added to the pond that might help balance the goldfish population. We asked them when the Canada Geese will return to the pond. Mr. Davis said they should have been here by now if they were coming back this year. He said maybe they will come back next year now that the pond is clean. Mr. Fetter and Mr. Davis asked us to send them email when we after we did our research about grasses, shrubs and fish.

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INDEX of Water Habitat Web Pages First Pond Page/A Look At Photo Journals/Writing About Water Habitats/Water Habitat Quilt/First Meeting With Mr.Alan Davis/Response to Pond Floods/Observation of the Great Blue Heron/Presentation to City of Pullman/Pond Birds/Pond Trees and Shrubs/Water Habitat I*EARN Conference Keynote Address/Photo Journal August 1999/Second Meeting With Mr.Alan Davis and Mr. Fetter/Research on Plantings for New Island/Planting Grass Seeds Photo Journal October 1999/Studying Pond Macroinvertebrates/Return to Classroom Index