© Ryan Rebozo
Ron Smith is a science educator and naturalist with over 25 years experience leading community science adventures—ranging from Horseshoe Crab rescues to frog surveys—for children and adults alike. With Pinelands Preservation Alliance, Ron established the Life Science Field Training Institute, a week-long program that trains teachers on field study techniques. He partnered with VCE to facilitate our fourth Community Science Teacher Education Workshop this July. Here he shares all the invertebrate investigations the teachers engaged in on just one day of the four-day workshop.
Part 1: Life on the Forest Floor
In a small forest patch behind the headquarters of the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, ten teachers walked a narrow trail through a dense stand of white pine and hardwoods. Headed for a line of pitfall traps (i.e. a sampling transect) set the day before, they stopped at a white flag that marked the first trap. Hidden in the leaf litter and soil, about a meter apart, the small glass jars were set so that insects and other invertebrates moving along the ground might tumble into them. Collecting ten samples at each of three sites, the team brought the catch back to the meeting room that served as a temporary lab.
© Ryan Rebozo
Using hand lenses, forceps, ID guides, and the collective experiences of all the participants, the group carefully made their way through each jar, sorting, counting, and identifying their quarry. Their aim was to document the richness of species (how many different types) and abundance of individuals (both per jar and per habitat). Examining feeding roles, habitat requirements, life stage and other aspects of their biology allowed the group to piece together ecological details of the invertebrates found in the sample, plus the ecosystem services provided by these species which are so often overlooked.
The teachers scribbled and sketched in their field notebooks, brimming with ideas for lesson plans, community science projects, and classroom activities designed to introduce students to both ecological methods and the importance of every organism in an ecosystem.
Part 2: Measuring the Health of an Aquatic Ecosystem
After a quick cleanup from the Pitfall Trap Study, the group changed shoes in preparation for a shallow-water sampling effort. Carpooling to the Mink Brook Preserve across the Connecticut River in New Hampshire, we parked and ate a quick lunch before walking a short trail to the study site.
By all accounts, the habitat surrounding the stream looked healthy. It had a wide riparian buffer (vegetation along the stream bank), a diversity of instream habitats (rocks, sand, sticks and logs), and clear water, which allowed us to see small fish and salamanders moving from one hiding place to another. We assembled a one-meter-square quadrat (a square made of PVC) and placed it on the shallow bottom of the stream. The sampling began.
© Ryan Rebozo
Today, streams all over the world can be assessed using techniques developed by a pioneering woman of science, ecologist Dr. Ruth Patrick from the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia. In the mid 20th century, she developed a technique that used standardized measurement of species tolerance of pollution to calculate the health of an aquatic ecosystem. (Dr. Patrick would live to over 100 years of age and was still sampling streams in her 90s!)
The group collected several stoneflies, mayflies and caddisflies: all insects that live out their larval stage in the water. In addition, non-insect species were tallied, including a couple snails (molluscs), a crayfish (crustacean) and a leech (worm).
Each species collected has a tolerance value that indicates how much pollution they can tolerate. Stoneflies have a value of 1 indicating little to no tolerance for pollution. The leech has a tolerance of 8, the highest on this scale, which indicates a high tolerance for pollution. Using a formula known as the Biotic Index the group calculated the average tolerance value for all of the nearly 300 invertebrates that were collected in the quadrat. With a value of 2.7, the stream system was determined to be excellent.
The group had successfully identified the community of invertebrates collected at Mink Brook and, using an established formula, calculated the health of an ecosystem. They can now use this technique on the nearby streams of their school campuses and neighborhoods.
Part 3: Plants and Pollinators
Celebrating the health of the stream we sampled, we moved on to our third and final invertebrate study of the day. VCE has established six experimental gardens in the Upper Valley, with the goal of revealing how different ecotypes of native plants (the same species originating from different regions of the country) compare when it comes to growth, pollinator resources, and environmental resilience.
With invertebrate conservation coming into greater focus, and the reality of climate change impacting every region of the country, knowing which ecotype thrives in a given habitat is essential.
Breaking into small groups, the teachers stood around the small plots with a specifically planted native ecotype. An inventory of insect visits to the plants established species diversity, frequency and preference for a given ecotype.
With field notebooks full of data, ideas about how the day’s studies could be integrated into curricula and lesson plans, and the possibility of long-term community science projects blossoming, the group debriefed on the day. This dedicated group of teachers would finish their four-day program of the 4th annual Community Science Teacher Workshop with the promise to continue to communicate and develop ways to enrich their programs, inspire and lead their students, and work to make the natural world a better place.
