River Lab

Despite the fact that I was a little incapacitated during the day at the River, I'll do my best to illustrate the activities that took place. Hopefully I was watching close enough to get it!


Finding Clams in The River

Here is a map showing where and how many clams students found at various spots in the River. They used a sort of sifter to separate the clams from the River dirt. Some areas were more suitable for the clams than others, and they seemed to prefer certain conditions. I would be interested to learn more about clams and how they ended up in the river. I know I personally tend to associate them with larger bodies of water, like an ocean, so I was surprised to see that there were so many down in the river.

River Elevation

While one group of students was looking for clams, the other group was responsible for measuring the elevation of the river at different points from one bank to the other. They used a rather simple device made from two poles marked with tape and attached to each other by a string. They could determine the elevation by where the water hit the poles and the distance by how far the poles were from each other. Here is a chart showing their findings.

Even though I got sick during our trip to the river, I did have fun during the time that I was able to participate. We gained a lot of interesting information and it was nice to get out of the classroom for a while.