River Transects

What is a Transect? A transect is a narrow section through natural features where you make observations and measurements. The purpose of doing a transect is to identify the biodiversity of different sites.

How We Did Our Transects:

Using measuring tape first, we had one person hold down the end while another person rolled until they reached 55 feet, then put a quadrat down for every three feet. We did the transect by collecting anything that was inside the quadrat. After the transect, we put what we collected into plastic Ziploc bags and rolled up the measuring tape.

Observations:

Jelm Mountain- A remote area with many cotton trees, hills, and mountains in the distance. From the fact that there were no humans living in the area, we did not find any garbage in, or around the river.

Terra Firma- Terra Firma is also a remote area, but it is also a very common trodden trail, and because of that, we did find some trash.

Optimist Park- At Optimist Park we realized that there were no pieces of trash. There were many willows and rocks near our transect site. Based on the samples from the transect there were branches, dead grass, rocks and dirt.

Greenbelt- At the Greenbelt there were willows and trees that all had no leaves on them. There weren’t many nature objects at the Greenbelt, it was mostly sand and branches. Some areas had wet sand while other areas had completely dry sand. We learned that this was caused from flooding. We also noticed that there was little to no trash near and around the river.

Laramie River Transect at Jelm Mountain Access

Introduction:

We believe that our river is being polluted by many different chemicals and plastics. We are going to go to three different sections of the Laramie River and take information to see what wildlife might be affected, if there is a problem.

Significance:

If there is pollution of any kind, it would affect all flora that grows there, any living creature that depends on the water, the citizens of the Laramie community, and the citizens of other cities that depend on the Laramie River as a water source.

Methods:

Using quadrats, which are wooden or plastic squares, we are going to measure the different species that grow, farther and farther from the river using a transect. A transect is a measured line of quadrats that go out farther and farther from the river. While seeing the type of species that grow in those quadrats, our class investigates and tries to see if in their tests, they see any type of garbage or pollution.

Results:

Jelm Mountain is very remote and open. Since we investigated here to find garbage, it was obvious that we wouldn’t find very much in a place where no humans lived.

Discussion:

We believe that this test was taken in Woods Landing to be able to compare it to the other sites that we are going to test. Because one is urban, but another one is right in Laramie. The fact that we didn’t find any trash in this transect proves our theory, where in the next report in Optimist park, will show a comparison in the water quality between a populated town, and a remote area.

Conclusion:

In the end, it wasn’t surprising when we didn’t find any garbage in a remote area, but in the middle of Laramie, we might find more garbage in a place with people who would place the garbage there in the first place.