Water Quality Solutions

Water Quality Civic-minded Solutions

Overall Objective:

Students will:

• be able to provide solutions to the issues that affect the ecological processes of our estuaries

Overall Estimated Grades/Times:

• Prep Exercise (see below) (Grade: 5th+; Time: 15 minutes)

• Activity 1 - Water Budget (Grade: 5th+; Time: 30-45 minute discussion and then overnight homework activity)

• Activity 2 - Social Media Campaign (Grade: 5th+; Time: 45-60 minutes)

• Optional Activity - World Water Monitoring Challenge

Overall Vocabulary:

• Ecology - the study of environmental systems, or as it is sometimes called, the economy of nature

• Estuary - is a partially enclosed body of water (such as bays, lagoons, sounds or sloughs)where two different bodies of water meet and mix

• Freshwater inflows - the term referring to the freshwater that flows from rivers into estuaries

• Larvae - a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults

• Plankton - usually microscopic organisms that float freely with oceanic currents and in other bodies of water

• Recruitment - the increase in a natural population as progeny grow and immigrants arrive

• Salinity - the concentration of salt in water, usually measured in parts per thousand (ppt)

Prep Exercise

1. Have the students read and discuss the below information before proceeding to the activities in this section.

2. Use the following discussion questions to help them out.

   1. What kind of animal does the Mission-Aransas NERR monitor?

   2. What does "recruitment of larval blue crabs into the estuary" mean?

   3. What do you think is happening if larval blue crabs aren't coming into the estuary as expected?

   4. What are some things that blue crabs use as signals to help guide their entry into the estuary?

Introduction

Blue crabs are found in a variety of different coastal habitats in the western Atlantic Ocean from Nova Scotia to Argentina. They support multi-million dollar commercial crabbing industries in many states and are an important part of the estuarine food web. There has been a long-term decline in the abundance of blue crabs in Texas coastal waters, attributed to several causes including loss of habitat, over-crabbing, by-catch, and reduced freshwater inflow to estuaries. Texas blue crabs spawn in the Gulf of Mexico and their planktonic larvae must return to the estuary to grow into adults. The larvae use salinity and chemical signals associated with freshwater inflows to help guide their entry into the estuary. During periods of drought the movement of larvae into the estuary and their ultimate survival may be significantly reduced. 

Citizen Scientists have been working with researchers at the Mission-Aransas NERR to monitor the entry of blue crabs in the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve, since the spring of 2012. The goal of their work is to obtain long term information about the entry (or recruitment) of larval blue crabs into the estuary and the importance of freshwater inflows in the recruitment process. Knowing more about how blue crab larvae behave during the recruitment process could help us understand why Texas populations are declining. This collaboration brings local citizens into the research environment where they are encouraged to take ownership and responsibility for their local estuary and its resources.