This last Friday the 13th was not an unlucky day for the terraces of Cieneguitas Creek. A small but hard working group of us met along the creek in the San Marcos Foothills Preserve and under the guidance of Jonathan Applebaum of Channel Islands Restoration we planted at least 86 1 gallon native plants. These included Wild Four O’clock, California Sunflower, Wild Bitter Gooseberry, Purple Sage, Hummingbird Sage, Giant Rye Grass, and Lemonade Berry. It was fun to see how everybody gravitated towards certain plants as their favorites. We also pulled a lot of weeds along the way. Our number one least favorite invasive weed had to be Castor Bean. Yuck! Enjoy the slide show.
Santa Cruz Island Trip
About 60 of us went to Santa Cruz Island, Scorpion Bay with Channel Islands Restoration on Friday May 6th. We saw incredible pods of Humpback whales on our trip to and from the island. Once on the island we took a short hike and then got to work. We pulled invasive weeds from a restoration site along the creek mouth near the visitors' center at Scorpion Bay. We filled 30 bags with weeds in no time flat. One of the best comments overheard from a student was a request to come back for two months to do nothing but weeding each day. That might be able to be arranged! Enjoy the slide show.
Macroinvertebrates at HBP
We had a great visit from Dr. Michael Caterino, Curator of Entomology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History last week. We spent some time in the creek looking for cool insects and found a ton of diversity. It looks really healthy based on what we saw. Check out the photos in this slide show to see what we found. Beware of the Toe-biters!
Water Chemistry Results From Each Site Over the Seasons
Use this link to see the results of our water chemistry tests at each site over the seasons. It is easy to see that the water quality is better in the Spring after the Winter rains than in the fall after a long dry summer. The rains function as a big flush sending all the runoff out to sea. Good for our creeks but bad for the ocean and our channel islands.
Results 2010-2011
Results 2010-2011
Water Chemistry Results Spring 2011
Use the following link in order to view our water testing results from Spring of 2011. It is easy to see that the water is cleaner upstream than downstream. The only bump here was that our coliform test was a bit higher at the mid-point than at the bottom of the creek.
Spring 2011 Results
Spring 2011 Results
Project Fair Sharing
Listen in to what the students have been learning this year at our Home Based Partnership Project Fair. These kids are good!
Pacific Mole Crab
by Chloe
The Pacific Mole Crab is a kind of sand crab that is very small and gray. It can grow to be up to 35 mm long and 25 mm wide. The female is larger than a male and it may have bright orange eggs or short threads near the telson. The males are smaller than the female and they both can be tan too.They live on sandy beaches from Alaska to Baja California. They bury themselves in the sand.
The mole crab’s predators are fish, water birds, and shore birds. That is why they live underneath the sand.
In our Watershed class we measure their length, count how many there are, and chart the data. We also check to see if the females have eggs. We enter the data on the LiMPETS website.
I think mole crabs are so cool because of how they dig in the sand. They dig with their back legs, moving backwards. They dig so fast that if you look away and you look back they might seem to disappear. Their quickness makes them hide from their predators quickly.
Nine Inches of Rain in 24 Hours
This is what our quiet little creek looks like during a Noahmic rain event.
Trash in Our Creek
by Nashat
Lots of people put trash in our creek. This can affect our creek in many ways. One reason is that if people put plastic bags or any other types of trash in our creeks it will sail into the ocean, and some fish think that those plastic bags are their food, and then they eat it, which is very bad. Also, when people are washing their cars and they’re using soap, sometimes the soap has chemicals, and some of those chemicals go into the creek and down into the ocean, and some of the sand crabs living down there eat it. It actually doesn’t affect them, but birds that eat them, such as pelicans, can be harmed. Pelicans stand on their eggs they don’t sit on them, and when they eat those chemicals (DDT) their eggshells are not hard. When they try to stand on them, the eggs become squashed. Just because of this, one whole species of pelicans almost died out. Long ago, the Native Americans could drink from the creek water. That was because in that time the creek wasn’t contaminated. Today we can find soda bottles, steel, plastic bags, and paper in our creek. These trashes have damaged our creek in many ways, and will eventually affect the ocean.
Water Chemistry Results Winter 2011
Use the following link in order to view our water testing results from Winter of 2011. It is easy to see that the water is cleaner upstream than downstream.Winter 2011 Results
Turbidity - How Do We Test For It?
I’m Katie. I’m a part of Ocean Guardians. I’m going to tell you about the turbidity tube. First thing you need to know is the four parts of the turbidity tube. The parts are a clear tube, a tube cap, a viewing disc, and a measuring device. To use the tube, fill it with water from the creek until you can no longer see the viewing disc at the bottom of the tube. Then look at the side of the tube and use the measuring device to measure the turbidity. If the water is murkier the higher the turbidity is. This is how you measure the turbidity using the turbidity tube.
Turbidity - What's That All About?
by Caleb
I am a student in the Home Based Partnership Ocean Guardians class. We go down the Maria Ygnacio creek to test the water. One of these test is turbidity, turbidity is measuring how clear the water is. The greater the turbidity the murkier the water is. Solids vary from clay, silt and plankton, industrial waste and sewage.
If the water is dirty, how does it affect the ecosystem? When the turbidity is higher it affect the organisms in the creek. The particles floating in the water absorbs heat from the sunlight, which causes the water to become warmer. Warmer water holds less oxygen. A lack of sunlight causes some bugs to die because they’re is not enough oxygen in the water.
If the water is dirty, how does it affect the ecosystem? When the turbidity is higher it affect the organisms in the creek. The particles floating in the water absorbs heat from the sunlight, which causes the water to become warmer. Warmer water holds less oxygen. A lack of sunlight causes some bugs to die because they’re is not enough oxygen in the water.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)