5/22/19
We went to the Narrows today for a second time, this time to hike the trails. There were three stations to go to: Water quality testing, the nature center, and rope swing. We decided to do those stations in that order, which were about 1.5 miles apart.
I had my first experience testing water quality today. We went to a little stream that branched off the trail to test water There were some Juniors in our group who were experienced enough to help us with the equipment. The equipment we used consisted of a bucket, thermometer, and some indicator pills. The first test was temperature. We tested temperature--using a thermometer which curved onto the bucket—by leaving the bucket in the water till we could determine the temperature. The temperature of the water was 10*C. The next test was dissolved oxygen, tested using a pill. The pill was mixed with a sample of the water and the color of the water indicated the Parts Per Million of Oxygen. Using water temperature and dissolved oxygen (3.4 PPM), a table indicated that the percent saturation was 35%. Another pill indicated that the pH level of the water was 8, which is 10 times more basic than neutral. The final test was turbidity, which was an observation of how clear the water is.
Not all of these indicate if the water is drinkable, though. As the Dayton Water Department showed yesterday, there are multiple tests to detect bacteria in the water. We could not conclude if the water was drinkable.
We stopped off at the Nature Center during lunchtime–for the animals, that is. A custodian who showed us around the building greeted us. There were a variety of snakes, tortoises, and frogs. There were also displays of (fake) coyotes and foxes. The custodian had recently dropped off some rats for the snakes and grasshopper for the frogs to eat. She told us the difference between tortoises and turtles; turtles are herbivorous and tortoises are omnivorous. She also told us what the four stages that a frog goes through; egg, tadpole, froglet, and frog. Shen then directed us to a room where the tortoises were having lunch. They ate an earthworm. This is the scene captured in my drawing. They gnawed at the worm for a while, and eventually swallowed up it whole. I chose to capture this scene because of the colors that the tortoise had on its shell; yellow and black.
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