Mianus River Gorge Test Site

On Thursday April 1, 2010 was a fun experience, but it was still very educational. I learned a lot from this field trip about water. I learned about turbidity, how fast water the water was moving at the Mianus River, and how to find the pH level of soil and water. But, before we went anywhere, we had to take off our shoes and put on these big rubber boots that helped you walk in the mud, but made you feel like you were about to fall over any minute.
One of my favorite stations was the station where we had to find how clear, or turbid, the water was. We put the water in a big tube then drained it until we were able to see a black and white disk at the bottom. Then we also did something called titration. I thought titration was really cool because it made the water, which was originally a really dark brown color, clear again.
After we had lunch we went to station where we needed a sample of surface water and then water under the surface. To get the sample of water under the surface we used a tool that was a sideways tube with two cones on top of it at the end. This object was attached to a rope, so that you could put it into the water from a high place, we were on a bridge, and then are able to pull it up again. Once the object was in the water you dropped a weight from the rope, and if it fell in the right place, the cones would fall and close the tube on both ends with the sample of the water in it. Everyone got a chance to do this. The trip to Mianus River Gorge was a very educational and fun trip, and I can’t wait to visit it again.