“Overall the site wasn’t as clean as Labarque. There was much more trash around the site. This place has heavily been impacted by humans.” Megan, Human Impact
“Erosion is happening on the creek banks and is causing the stream to get bigger and the trees are falling into the water which may be causing the discoloration of the rocks.” Audrey, Data Anayalist
Young Conservation: Conclusion
This area had really interesting connections from all perspectives. From botany, to meteorology, and so on, there were so many amazing findings about the environment. Although some of the things there were man made, like trails, most of the land was all natural and mostly untouched by humans. We found some shiny looking substances in the water downstream. One looked like marble which could mean it was oil, and the other was orange and fuzzy. That ended up being a mystery to us. A really cool observation that we had was that the leaves falling from trees were decomposing into the creek and changing the color of the rocks. Down stream had more phosphates and nitrates than upstream because the runoff travelled down into water that wasn’t moving so it got all clogged up with oils and fertilizers. There was a lot of diversity between the aquatic species because the oxygen levels underwater were very different in many places. There were higher oxygen levels upstream since the pollution downstream diminished the amount of oxygen in the water.