Our objective when exploring the rivers during our field studies was to test the water, more specially to test the water to see if it is safe to swim in. We also wanted to see what kinds of bugs lived in each water which would later give us the answer, is the water quality safe enough to swim in? Each different bug lives in individual water quality so discovering and detecting which bugs lived in which water means we could later then vary between a ruff response of whether the water quality was good enough.
We where able to find the bugs by moving into the river water and rubbing rocks with a brush into a net under the water. The current of the water would push whatever bugs where on the rocks into the net, we would then take the net and transfer the bugs from the net into a bowl of river water. To ensure nobodies clothes would get wet we wore waiters when in the water. The waiters where interesting since I’ve never worn them before. When I put them on it felt like a big suit and once I was in the water my legs felt cold, but overall it was fun.
The first test sight we went to was Coquitlam river. The water was nice however it was freezing cold, just having my hand under the water made it numb. The water wasn’t deep where I was staying it was quit shallow, all though the water had an extreme current moving down and was pulling everyone but luckily nobody called pulled away.
while at the Coquitlam river we found a few insects in the water.
The most common bug found where mayflies, I was shocked to learn there where many types of mayflies. The ones I found where the mayflies with three tails, and the mayflies with two tails. I found two of each along with a dead mayflies skin, it was a cloudy white transparent colour. Mayflies where not the only bugs I was able to find, I would later find a bug very similar to the mayflies known as the stonefly. There very similar in shape and size and they all just about have the same amount of legs, however I was able to differentiate between the two since the specific species of stonefly I came across had a thicker back body and thiner tails then the mayflies I found, without the chart I would not be able to tell the difference between a mayfly and stonefly.
Over all it all came down to one thing, water quality. after testing the water we where able to come to a ruff water quality estimate of [ 85.06 ] in other words the water is good quality and safe to swim in. Since I have swam in that river water before I was not shocked or surprised to find out the water quality is good and safe, I was happy with the results and its good to know that a local river near my house is save for swimming.
Oxbow pond sight
The Oxbow pond sight was nothing like the poco river, it looked abandoned and untouched and reminded me of that one episode of the Simpsons where there was a contaminated lake with fish with five eye balls and scary snakes. The air smelt bad once the people with waiters stepped on the bottom of the pond. The water was brown and cloudy, it had bubbles forming on the sides of the pond and has gross brown build up all around the sides. In conclusion I would never swim in there.
Unlike the river this pond had bugs twice the size of the ones from the river, it even had snails!!!
the snails actual name is a gilled snail but could possibly be a pouch snail or pond snail. Someone also found a very big bug, I was also not able to find a bug that looked exactly like the one we found but it could be a lot of things. It could be a caddisfly larva or a damselfly larva which are both predators
This time in order to find the bugs we did not rub rocks into a net, instead we collected the brown build up from the sides of the pond and transferred it into a bowl of pond water. This pond had no current or movement and from what I saw it was deeper then the river.
Once again it come down to one thing in the end, the quality of the water. The ruff conclusion of the quality of the water was [69.41] In other words the quality was not the best but not the worst, it was average. I was shocked to find out the quality of the water wasn’t all that bad, I seriously believed the water was poisoned.
Coquitlam river compared to oxbow pond
At the end of the day the best water quality was the river, no shock there. All though the river might be the best for swimming I think the pond was more interesting for finding bugs since the water looks like it could mutate insects, I mean seriously I’m convinced they based that Simpsons episode off of oxbow pond. The river water was fresh and clean and the oxbow pond looked muddy and even smelt bad, if that’s not a red flag not to go in that water I don’t know what is.
Exploring outside and finding insects and learning about them was pretty fun, I got the opportunity to do something I’m not used to and go out of my comfort zone by going into the water. I think it was fun and got the class to know each other a bit better and connect with one another. It was defiantly a fun experiment and I had lots of fun doing it.