Is our stream healthy?

Beaver Brook 2003

(team 8-2)

This page designed by: Eric A.& Alexis W. (2003)

For last couple of weeks we have been working at our local stream (beaver brook) in the back of our school. We have done many activities such as looking for macroinvertibrates and doing chemical testing to determine the health of our stream. Some different tests we have done are PH, nitrates, phosphates, hardness, turbidity and temperature. According to our recent studies, our school stream is very healthy. Looking for macroinvertibrates was by far the best part. Although we got a little dirty and saw some weird types of insects, we had fun doing it. Our group found macroinvertebrates such as cadisfly larvae, cranefly larvae, crayfish, and midge fly larvae. We studied these macroinvertebrates very closely and came to the conclusion that our stream was healthy. This was because there were many pollutant sensitive macroinvertebrates showing that there was not much pollution in our stream. As you can tell, we have learned alot through this bay study and at the same time we were having fun. Well, we hope you enjoy our page.

 

 

Chemicals: Our results: natural reading:
     
Disolved Oxygen 7 ppm 7-14 ppm
PH 6.5 6.5-8.5
Phosphates 0.0 ppm 0.0-0.65 ppm
nitrates 0.0 ppm 0.0-0.08 ppm
Temperature 55 f varies
Turbidity 80-120 56
Hardness 170 mg/L 20-400 mg/L

 

 

 

Macroinvertevrates number we found reaction to pollution
     
Caddisfly larvae 1 sensitive to pollution
Cranefly larvae 4 somewhat sensitive to pollution
Crayfish 2 somewhat sensitive to pollution
Midge larvae 10 tolerant to pollution
     

 

Our Macroinvertebrates:
Caddsifly
^Cranefly
Crayfish
Midge fly larvae