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Students in IB Chemistry, IB Biology, and IB Environmental Systems & Societies had great success at the annual Group 4 day at Silver Springs Park last month. Check out this article by CP Junior, Miles Montgomery, who shared his experience!
I have always been interested in Missouri’s native animals and nature in general. I have also considered a career in Biology or Environmental sciences for quite some time so I was very excited when I heard about Group 4 and what it entailed. Specifically, the opportunity to perform tests in a stream, even in an urban environment, excited me because it gave us students the chance to get a glimpse into a possible future. Overall, going into the testing day, I was excited to say the least.
I chose to be different from everyone else and actually conduct a test for freshwater mussels, an animal I’m extremely interested in. I chose to measure the amount of mussels recorded in two sections of the stream, one section with gravel substrate and one section with small rocks and loose sandy substrate. Some preparation and thought had to be put in first because the test had never been done before for group 4 quite like this. I first had to determine if there were even mussels in the stream. During one of the days where Mr. Epps took us to the stream to show us how to perform the tests, I found a half of a deceased mussel shell within minutes of searching. While incredibly small, I’d estimate only about 3 millimeters across lengthwise, it proved there were mussels somewhere in the stream. Before the test day, I devised a plan to use a trowel to shovel material from the bottom of the stream (my IV was rocky substrate or loose/small gravelly substrate), and place that into a sort of filter. I would then shake that around to expose the rocks and hopefully, mussels to be counted up. I ended up layering two sheets of mesh together and sewing this up into a bag to place the substrate into. Finally, I prepared a bucket with an aerator to provide the mussels with well oxygenated water while I was finishing up my tests because I had no idea how long it would take.
On the day of testing, I performed my test right with the quadrats and grid that I created beforehand and found no mussels in the gravelly and rocky substrate. I had not lost hope though because at my second location, I believed I would find mussels in the stretch with mixed sand and small rocks on the bottom. I was very ecstatic to discover that I found a multitude of mussels in this next location, alive and deceased. I performed the same procedure for all the 15 samples taken from each location (30 total), took the trowel, dug up about the quadrat’s worth of substrate and poured it into the mesh bag. I then swished it around in the water to wash away the sand and mud and then poured out the rest of the contents onto the flat rock wall by the stream. As I picked through the rocks, any mussels or mussel shells I was able to find were placed in the bucket with the aerator. After the tests were finished, I found 18 mussels total, 13 deceased and 5 alive, all in the looser substrate. Ultimately, this was a unique school opportunity and I learned a lot about performing tests and observing nature scientifically.
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