Final Reports
Fall 2002

Munro Homeschoolers

We did our water testing on Sept. 14, 2002. We tested an area of the Ipswich River that goes through Bradley-Palmer State Forest in Ipswich Massachusetts. Our area had experienced a very dry hot summer and we think this affected conditions on the river. We found the river to be Brown and Murky. We noticed a lot of wildlife including turtles, ducks and commorants. There was a little bit of litter on the banks but overall the river was in good condition. Our test results were as follows: Temperature was 70F Ph was 6.0 DO was 16ppm Nitrates (NO3) 3ppm

Andersons Creek Primary

Andersons Creek Primary School Warrandyte, Victoria, Australia The water that Lynch’s Creekers tested was from a pond at Pound Bend in Warrandyte. We found water striders and tadpoles in the pond. The pH level of the pond was 7.2 which is very good. The dissolved oxygen level was 5.2 which is fair. We thought the quality of the water that we tested was fair to good. The water that Barnsey’s Scientists tested was from the Yarra River below the junction of Andersons Creek. The pH level of the water was 7.5 which is very good. The dissolved oxygen level was 4.4 ppm which was fair. We decided that the quality of the water was fair. We would expect to find invertebrates and aquatic life such as tadpoles, dragonflies, yabbies, shrimps, mudeyes and damselflies in our tested area. The water that 4Z tested was from a dam in Jakes backyard in North Warrandyte. The water was very murky and had a turbidity level of 85. The pH level was 6.8 which was very good. The amount of dissolved oxygen in thedam was very poor. It had a level of 1.5 ppm. We decided the water quality was fair to poor. The aquatic life that we found around the dam were yabbies, tadpoles and dragonflies. The Newhouse Experts and Robbo’s Scientists tested the water from Anderson’s Creek in Warrandyte. We found that the quality of the water was good. The water was clear and the turbidity level was 18. The pH level of the water at Anderson’s Creek was 7.7 which was good. The dissolved oxygen was 4 ppm which was fair. We decided that the water quality was good. We found some snails in the creek and would expect there to be mayflies and caddisflies as well.

Frazee-Vergas Elementary School

Our test results (opt.ones also)are posted on the spreadsheet. The bottom of the river is sandy,rocky and has growth of short green mossy weeds. It also contains many different kinds of bugs crawling in every direction along with the crayfish and clams and snails. Our river's banks are full of different kinds of plants, such as tall grasses,cattails,horsetails,with juniper bushes,oak and ash trees further up the bank. Animals have their habitats by the river. These animals and their tracks/droppings are deer,snakes,gulls,song birds,rabbits and mice. On 10-28-01 between 9:45 & 10:45am when we took our final tests, it had been raining and sleeting. The temp was40 degrees F. and cloudy. After finding broken bottles and scrap metal pieces, we decided we would officially "Adopt this River" section and plan to clean it well later this spring. We interpreted our river's results by taking each test from our kit(LaMotte Water Monitoring)and using the laminated cards that explained each test. Something new we learned about our river is that there used to be a sawmill close to our test site during the 1800s. There are remnants of scrap metal proving this.Recognizing many different plant and animal species that have their habitats by our river was interesting.Something we will do in the future is test our river at least once every month to see if our results change with the seasons of Minnesota. Our conclusion is that most of our tests turned out to be "good or excellent". This proved to us that our original hypothesis was true.We do have a clear,clean river and want to keep it that way for future generations. Submitted by Taylor Stone & Hannah Daggett on November 8th, 2002

Hubbard High School

This is the 4/5 period Science class from Hubbard High School in Hubbard, Ohio reporting our final results. We tested the water of a stream near our high school. Our hypothesis was that the water was going to be very dirty, due to littering and kids playing by the stream. To our surprise, the 2 times we tested the stream the pH level was at around 6, which is in Good Standing. Our class was very surprised by this finding! The average temperature of the stream was about 45 degrees F (or about 10 degrees C), due to some cold days we had in October here in Northeast Ohio. The Dissolved Oxygen level was at about 8 ppm which is pretty good. Our class had a very hard time understanding how to do the Dissolved Oxygen test, so if we did this project again, I would research that test more so we would be able to understand it better. We also did not see any type of macroinvertebrates in the stream. One of my students saw a frog nearby the stream in the woods, but that was it.  The students then graphed the results and posted the graphs in our classroom. We also figured out the averages for the temperature of the water and the pH. Our class really enjoyed this experience, and I hope to do this project again in the spring!! Thank You!! Miss L Drummond and 4/5 period Science class