Back from Key Largo!

Despite unexpected high seas (which meant we couldn't make it out to the reefs) the trip was still quite a success! Eight students and two teachers headed down to the Marine Resources Development Foundation's Marine Lab for four and a half days of adventure.

Here's some of the many things we did:

Water quality analysis
Swim test & snorkel basics
Snorkeling in the mangroves and sea grasses
Trips to the grotto, Nest Key, Rodriguez Key, through Adam's Cut to Florida Bay
Turtle rescue lab
Coastal Clean-up
Talks/lectures on the Everglades coral reef, sea grass, mangrove and oceanic ecology
Movies: Sharks & Finding Nemo
Seine fishing
Sloshing through mud pits
Plankton Tow
Astronomy
A trip to the Everglades National Park

Check out the slideshow in the right sidebar for pictures of the trip. If there's a picture you want to see larger, just click on it.

Spring Term for Limnology and Marine Field Studies

We will use the spring term to continue our aquatic studies, collecting and analyzing the long-term data from the Turkey River watershed. Once the ice has melted from Turkey Pond, the over-winter leaf bags will be collected to complete the analysis of nutrient load that is entering our watershed. This is also true for the ice-out on Penacook Lake so that the spring turn-over and thermocline data can be collected and compared to the fall data and the summer 2008 data that was collected by the Advanced Studies Program Ecology students. The ultimate goal in our final project is to use this data to make an assessment of the water quality in our watershed based on criteria that are set by the State of New Hamphsire (DES).

We will also be visiting and studying other habitats as they emerge from winter snows. These will include vernal pools, an often over-looked but important transitory habitat for various amphibians, toads and frogs. This will be the first year of long-term data collection to determine the nature of vernal pools, their location on the school grounds, and identification of species that in habitat them.

With more favorable weather, our marine component will now be field studies at the New Hampshire seacoast. Data will be collected at a salt marsh, rocky intertidal zone, sandy beach, and a rare pitch-pine barren. These habitats will be compared to the habitats that participants to Marine Resources in Key Largo, FL will be studying in detail over our Spring Weekend. The hydrology and man's impact on the unique Florida Everglades will also be part of the field trip and class discussion.

To wrap up the big picture view, the class will have a 13 mile canoe trip down the Merrimack River, stopping along the way to collect similar data that has been collected in our watershed. We will note on the trip the convergence point of our Turkey River, and where the effluent from the Concord Wastewater Treatment plant (a class field trip) is discharged into the Merrimack. The sites that we visit on the canoe trip will be the same as the rock-basket collection points for the Upper Merrimack River Program "Bug Nights" which SPS has been hosting from January to April. In this Community Outreach Program (COP), students have been working with outside volunteers to identify aquatic macro invertebrates as a means of determining water quality in this segment of the Merrimack River.

SeaCoast Science Center Photos

Pollock Fisheries Crashing!

Alaska's Bering Sea
We've been warning for years that the Bering Sea's pollock fishery - the world's largest - is suffering from overfishing. We've been called everything from crazy to exaggerating for making this claim about a fishery that has been held up as a model of sustainability. But news this month confirms our worst fears. The pollock population has plummeted by almost 50% in just one year. Pollock is the very foundation of the Bering Sea's food chain, feeding everything from the endangered Steller Sea Lion to fur seals. In fact, baby fur seals are already washing up dead in the Pribilof Islands, and scientists hypothesize that their deaths are caused by starvation.
Take Action !

As a class, we have already "seen" this scenerio in the video Mystery in Alaska. If you have not seen this PBS documentary, it is a MUST SEE for anyone who is interested in fisheries management, the importance of Keystone species within an ecosystem, and how scientists are working with and industry to find a "win-win-win" scenerio - a sustainable future for all!

The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council will vote this month to set fishing limits on pollock! <https://webmail.sps.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://members.greenpeace.org/action/start.php?action_id=161>

Slideshow of Fall Fieldwork

Below is a PowerPoint slideshow of the field work completed thus far. Click through the slides at your own pace. Enjoy!

Fall Slideshow Of Field Project Work

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

Water Sampling at Lower School Pond

Below are pictures of our first field experience....Let's just say some people should stick to dry land....

Our Sampling Site

Water anaylsis included DO, temperature, nitrates, phosphates, pH, turbidity and conductivity.

The "maiden" voyage with the canoes behind the Hockey Rink.

Welcome to our Ecology Blog!

This is a new advanced Biology course offering at St. Paul's School. We are fortunate to have almost 2000 acres on the school grounds, through which the Turkey River flows to the Merrimack River as a background for our studies. Students will spend time in the field collecting data and assessing the water quality of our watershed. We are interested in nutrient load, diversity of species within our part of the watershed, soil impact to name a few. We are also partnered with the Upper Merrimack River Program, through the NH DES, to help as part of their volunteer team in data analysis of macroinvertebrates that are found in a prescribed length of the watershed.