Creek Day

Creek Day is another hands on experience students have at Julius Marks. Our community partner, Bluegrass Greensource through the support of Live Green Lexington, comes to help host this amazing school-wide event.

Every class from K-5 has the opportunity to walk to the creek that borders Landsdowne-Merrick Park beside of our school. Before exploring, students learn about watersheds and how the water quality of a specific water source may be tested in various ways. First, they observe one of our volunteers test the creek water and find out the ph and oxygen levels. Next, they get to put on rain boots, grab a net, and hunt for macro-invertebrates. Anything they find is put into small tubs for observation and study as they learn that certain macros can live only in clean water, some only live in dirty water, and some can live anywhere. This provides great opportunity for them to learn to use a dichotomous key when trying to ID these water creatures. Enjoy the photos below from April 2019.