What have we been up to lately?  Lots!

In class we’ve been learning how the salinity of water affects its density.  We’ve also learned how heat energy affects the particles of a substance so that we can take into account temperature differences and other factors to think about where to locate Bryson’s sensor station in the marsh to collect salinity data.  We’ll be creating “partner proposals” to make arguments about where the best location is to measure the greatest potential salinity.  

Bryson presented his work with Paul at the Maine Environmental Education Association’s annual conference in Belfast on March 15th!  (Click here to view the presentation slides.) He did a great job and explained creating and soldering circuits for each probe, coding the programming for inputs and outputs related to each probe, calibrating the sensors and creating a waterproof housing for the battery pack and sensor probes. He’s had a tremendous learning experience full of technical engineering and perseverance as challenges presented themselves at each step. With some final solutions, the station will be ready to go later this spring!

In the meantime, Cecil is also working in the Maker Space to help us find a way to create some alewife art out of aluminum material.  The router will likely cut the silouette of an alewife, and then the laser cutter will etch the pattern of scales and fin rays and other details individual students can create.

We’ve also played the “Great Migration Fish Game” to learn how difficult it is to be a herring and survive to adulthood and migrate back to your wetland to spawn, even though females produce 100,000+ eggs within their bodies.  The natural and manmade hazards are numerous and we plan to adapt the information and concepts in the game to create a graphic display of the life cycle of an alewife.  We may want to install a more permanent version of this product in our kiosk for visitors and citizens to enjoy and learn.

Just yesterday, Cecil and a friend borrowed hip boots and checked out Ripley Creek after school.  A dead, adult American eel made it’s way back into the classroom and really stunk it up!  We wonder if it died in the marsh and then washed out the stream.

We sure are happy the weather is warming and it’s officially spring!!