Today was a very pleasant day. I was home alone, so it was nice to sort of do whatever I wanted to. Before leaving, I made sure to set up my notebook so I wouldn't have to spend too much time writing stuff down. I gave myself a template to record all of the required data for the day, so all I had to do upon arrival was to write in the information. After checking the packing list online, and packing up my backpack, I made my way down to the stream. 

When I got there, I immediately noticed the change in temperature from the day before. Everything was much warmer. The air, the water, the rocks, and everything else. I wondered if I would see such changes in my data after recording the temperature of the water. Today, I really wanted to take more photos of the data recording process, so I made sure to take more pictures! I set my bag down at my spot, and got to work. 

To begin, I checked my weather app on my phone, and recorded the outside temperature at 83° F or 28° C which was to no surprise warmer than yesterday's temperature. After that, I began my water testing. I recorded 5 temperatures from differently shaded areas using my TDS Test Pen. I averaged them all, and my thoughts about the weather were statistically not true for the water. The temperature came out to 21.3° C. Yesterday's temperature was 22.8° C. I am unsure what caused this, but the temperature was surprising to me. After, I performed the conductivity test still using my TDS Test Pen, and this came out to 404 µs/cm, which is higher than yesterday's. I recorded both the averaged water temperature, and the conductivity in my notebook. I made sure to take photos of me doing this, as seen in the images on the left of this page. After, using both my broad range and limited range pH papers, I recorded the pH at 6.4, and wrote that down in my notebook. 

Now, it was time to catch some macroinvertebrates! This was very exciting for me, and I had been looking forward to it. I grabbed my net, filled up both the tub and ice tray with stream water for the bugs once they were captured. I had a hard time overall catching any macroinvertebrates, but I made it work. I had obtained many mayflies, and those made up the majority of my total. In one of my samples, I got a crayfish! This was very exciting, and I was kind of hoping to catch one. I rushed back to my tub, and instead of emptying everything into my bin, I gave the entire tub to the crayfish and freed the rest of the macroinvertebrates. I kind of freaked out when I saw it, but this was mostly out of pure excitement. I must have been to excited or something, because I completely forgot to take any photos of it. However, I did make sure to sketch it to the best of my abilities (not very well) after the fact. After collecting 4 different samples, I was only able to obtain 55 organisms, but I was okay with that. I thought that it would be easier to do the calculations for the packet once I was home, so I left them incomplete for a little while. 

Then I moved onto my sketches. I decided to challenge myself and make 3 sketches today instead of 2, in hopes that I would improve my artistic ability. I grabbed my pencil, and got to work. there wasn't a lot of improvement, but I felt more confident this time around, and I wasn't afraid to make mistakes with my art. After finishing my sketches, I decided to head home. Some of my materials became wet through the process, so I seperated the dry and wet materials into 2 different compartments of my backpack. After that, I started the hike back home, and when I got home, I hopped in the hsower to make sure I got clean and tick free. Then, I completed the calculations from the packet, and began writing my reflection. I then relaxed for a bit before the zoom call began. 

Here is the macroinvertebrate tally count sheet