Stream Team at Hodge Park
April 24, 2024
The EDGE Stream Team ventured out to the East Fork of Shoal Creek with Mrs. Carpenter for their semi annual trip. Twice a year students visit the same location of the creek to do a variety of activities that collect data for the state of Missouri and help monitor the livelihood of the waterway. This is the fourth year of participating in this citizen science program. Data collection includes visual description of the site, vegetation, and flow rate of the water in the stream. Three different locations are chosen and students set up a net to collect any material (insects, fish, etc.) that are stirred up while other students turn up the mud on the bottom of the creek with their feet. The collection net is taken to a table made of netting material and everything is examined. Anything that moves or is alive is picked up with tweezers and placed in an ice cube tray. After sorting, the contents in the ice cube tray are identified using a laminated identification chart. Typical items include insects, frogs, larvae and an occasional fish or crawdad. Today students found large crawdads as well as several rather large snakes. A favorite activity of Dr. Langhorst’s (besides taking video and pictures) is using the Merlin Bird ID app to discover what birds are in the area. The Merlin app picked up Cardinals, Blue Jays, Tufted Titmouse, Eastern Kingbirds, Red-Bellied Woodpeckers, Northern Parula, Robins, Downy Woodpeckers, Carolina Wrens and Baltimore Orioles. It was a beautiful day in nature participating in real world data collection for science.
