UWF

This week both Cohorts were together here at University of West Florida in Pensacola. All of us this week went to many different types of streams and learned about their conditions. Many small streams around the campus are in bad shape for many reasons. Some are affected by the construction of new buildings, and they put down a level of clay for the base of these buildings and when it rains the clay will runoff into the streams. Another reason some streams are in bad shape is because a bridge was washed away by a huge storm that came through Pensacola. This happened around a year ago and nothing has been done to fix the runoff, pavement and other materials in the stream to be cleaned out.  One of my favorite things that we got to do this week is using the seine nets. I have never used one before this week, it is a lot of work especially when there were waves in the gulf but it was well worth it. We got to see the different species of fish that were common around the gulf, sound, and other areas. I also liked how we focused on biodiversity when using the seine nets to pull up fish and other organisms.

Another thing that I really enjoyed this week was going out on the pontoon boats to collect water data from different parts of the Perdido River. The different sites we went to on the river had different water quality data. It was really interesting to learn why some parts had different qualities than the others. I helped out with the secchi disk to find out what the turbidity of the water was at each site. The sites within the river stayed constant at one meter.

While waiting for the boats to come to the docks, my group thought it was a perfect time to get a picture together! The picture came out great! This week was tough with all of the field work but it was well worth it, and fun!