Homeschool Stream Team

On Monday, homeschooler Cash, his little brother Colt, his mom, and TenneSEA staff Sara finally found a day without rain to venture out to Audubon Acres and make some observations of North Chickamauga Creek. As we were walking to the creek access, we quickly realized we were not the only ones in the woods. We are being heavily attacked by swarms of mosquitoes! Quite literally, this was the largest group of mosquitoes any of us had ever seen! However, we did manage to make our way to the creek with only 1/3 of our bodies covered in bites.

Cash wanted to learn how to test and collect data on water parameters in order to find out about the water quality of the stream. We tested turbidity, dissolved oxygen, pH, and ammonia content of the water. We also hunted for macroinvertebrates among the rocks debris on the creek bed. From our findings, we concluded that North Chickamauga was in good condition. We did talk about different things like rainstorms and pollution that would have an affect on the creek and possibly change the data we collected.

Then, we prepared ourselves for the brave trek back through the mosquito jungle. Thankfully, we made it out and were still excited to come back and investigate more next time.