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Class wades into Curtis Creek project

getting the 411 on the H2O

photo by Britt Combs

Eli Campos, a student in McDowell High's advanced placement (AP) environmental science class, studies small creatures found in Old Fort's Curtis Creek Thursday. The presence and health of the tiny beasts reveals much about the environmental conditions of the creek.

By Britt Combs | The McDowell News

Published: November 1, 2009

Curtis Creek looks, feels and smells clean and pure like a mountain stream should. The McDowell High School students of Becky Rideout's AP environmental science class aim to find out for sure.

"We're basically just looking at the quality of the water in the stream," Rideout said, "and the biology, the bugs and animals," which tells a scientist a lot about the environment.

The project is to familiarize the kids with the use of high tech data gathering equipment and scientific field work Rideout explained. To that end, the class borrowed several high tech hand held devices from the N.C. State University Science House. Looking like a cross between a Start Trek "tricorder" and a GPS navigation device, the machines allowed the field scientists to measure the rate of flow, the oxygen levels and check for many kinds of pollution quickly and accurately.

The Thursday field trip saw the kids and teacher take a bus miles upstream into one of McDowell County's most pristine and popular nature sites for a day of exploration. There was plenty of work to do, but time enough to break for s'mores at lunch time.

Aside from the Lab Quest machines, the students also used measuring tapes and their own eyes to study the intricate and delicate ecosystem of Curtis Creek, which field into the Catawba River.

Rideout said a stream the size of Curtis Creek can have a very different ecosystem from the Catawba, just a few miles downstream. She indicated the various specimens of marine life -- crustaceans, fish and bugs -- the students had been collecting all morning.

One, a tiny bug called a "stone fly," has very low tolerance to pollution. The creature's presence in the creek was a quick and sure indicator that the water is clean.

The greater concentration of falls in that stretch of Curtis meant more oxygen dissolved into the water compared with the more calm -- thus, less oxygenated -- water of the Catawba. Being smaller, closer to its source and receiving less sun, the water will be much cooler than in the river. Specific data was collected and saved for later analysis.

She pointed out that the Lab Quest machines tabulated and charted the data as it was collected, making it a straightforward matter to analyze it later.

The kids were clearly enjoying themselves even as they learned. Some busied themselves observing the tiny specimens they had caught. Others were dragging a measuring tape across the stream; measuring its width and depth to compare to the speed and force of the creek. That would tell them how many gallons of water flowed in a given time to great accuracy.

A program of N.C. State University and funded in large part by the Golden Leaf Foundation, the Science House has a mission to facilitate the use of technology in teaching science and math at the kindergarten through high school levels.

With satellite offices across the state, including Asheville, Science House provides the use of nifty gadgets like the Lab Quest, and the training to use them properly. They also provide visiting lecturers, interactive Web sites including science-related games for elementary school kids, science and technology programs just for girls, and a host of resources to get kids (and teachers) interested in physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology and environmental sciences.