Beau Wolford, advisor to the Cardington—Lincoln Jr. High Science Club, and teacher Donna Kill taught a water quality unit to the club, then spent a school day exploring the Whetstone River Watershed of Morrow County. The group met with Matt Stooksbury, a Conservation Technician of Morrow County Soil and Water Conservation District at Headwaters Education Center. Mr. Stooksbury explained the watersheds of Ohio and took the group to the Robert Fissell Memorial Wetland Pond to conduct several water quality tests. The club gathered data using the technology provided by the OEEF grant awarded to the group through the Ohio EPA and water quality materials from the Ohio Corn & Wheat sponsored-Feed the World workshop, and were pleased to see the results matched.
Students then visited the Mt. Gilead State Lakes to learn about the ODNR dam reconstruction project and continued to collect stream samples to identify the water quality of Sam’s Creek. The group ended their day at the Maxwell Park in Cardington, collecting data such as temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, and macro-invertebrates caught in nets from the Whetstone River. The day provided an excellent opportunity to utilize the new grant technology and analyze the water in their own backyard.
Kill said, “We hope to go another day in the spring to collect data in the same locations and compare and analyze the information collected. The students loved the dissolved oxygen experiment, and we were able to get excellent results.”