Environmental Science

Our experiment for this year in science for Chimacum Elementary School was using water quality data from different types of parameters to see if our creek is doing healthy. We did this since we are sponsored by Ocean Guardian School, and partnered with NOSC, which is North Olympic Salmon Coalition who allowed us to present our parameters after learning. Sixth and fifth graders got to pick out what parameters seemed the most intriguing with a partner, then they’d have to do research on what they picked, like websites assigned by our teacher; Before we could go down to our creek. After research and instructions, we went fish trapping. To make sure we have plenty of healthy fish in the water, we used fish traps with a single piece of bread in it. Using these fish traps we can tell us that there’s no bacteria from dead fish or animals in the water that hasn’t touched or affected the creek, or even pollution that minimizes our fish numbers down, or even overpopulated types of fish.

After we finished our data of how many fish we caught every week, we went over instructions of parameters and how to measure them correctly. We used different types of water sensors and an expensive data collector that can measure all of our parameters, a LabQuest. We went down under the bridge near Chimacum Creek to test for dissolved oxygen, pH, water temperature, turbidity, stream flow, and conductivity. From the data we got from our Chimacum Creek with our testing for each parameter, we learned that we got more than good water quality for all of the parameters which proves that it is excellent for the fish and microorganisms in our creek’s water.

My evidence for this claim is that the first parameter, dissolved oxygen, got an average of 9.6 mg/L once tested in our creek. This is amazingly better than good because the range fish have to have to survive in water is 4 to 15 mg/L levels of dissolved oxygen, under 3 can kill the fish. The average of pH for our creek is 6.2, the average of Water Temperature is 51.3o F, turbidity average was 33/7 NTU’s, and conductivity is 117.9 cm. All of this data is more than excellent based on what we learned off of many informational sites, which proves how our creek is more than good for our fish.

Since the amount of fish we caught in the middle of the year can show that our creek is good in the amount of fish you can catch, the reason we got the results we got is because we didn’t litter or harm the fish in any way this year. Not even the fish, we didn’t spread pollution into the creek, which gave us a positive outcome. After all of this NOSC gave us the opportunity to go on a field trip to Youth Summit, which a few days after we got all of our data from our wonderful creek, we had to make a poster about our parameter to present to a different class. We rode a bus for two hours to Belfair, the weather decided to be stormy and raining outside, so the entire other school at our destination were wearing rain coats. Our presentation went well as my class and the other class split up into groups into a sharing circle to talk about our groups, before this we walked around a farm and I got to see llamas and alpacas for the first time. There were chickens and a bunny, and there was booths you walked to in order to learn about salmon and other water-living species. There was chaperons that participated in helping watching our class, including my mother. After all of this and the sharing circle, our presentation about dissolved oxygen with my partner went extremely well, we held our poster with pictures of probes and a LabQuest with other pictures of what we did down at our creek, we showed the other students and read off of flash cards about what dissolved oxygen is, how to measure it, and how our creek is doing.

These images proves that the data I’ve been talking about is true. These are salmon

These pictures support my evidence to my claim. from the third grades tank.

Chimacum Creek and the fish are doing more than average, They grew these salmon up

which is very amazing to know that our community before soon releasing them when they

including us are keeping our creek healthy were old enough and healthy for a

and safe for our fish and other animals. field trip they were assigned.

This is a picture of our averages of every parameter from 2021-22. We measured our creek, Chimacum Creek for data testing.

We did this around 5/8/22, we got to look at macroinvertebrates from a different creek under a telescope, this is the total amount everyone found!