Kids as Naturalists
We worked with a group of 70 sixth graders doing real field work at West Lake Park. We got grant money from Florida Learn and Serve. (To visit their site go to Serve and Learn. We were able to take nine field trips, rent the buses, get substitutes to cover teachers while they were in the field and to buy all the field equipment we needed from a grant. The grant was written by the Hollywood Rotary Ann Club. That was good because one of the resons we wanted to do all this was to get more people in the community aware of how valuable wetlands are. We had to identify a real need then the students studied the problem, West Lake Park, and all kinds of related subjects in their classes for nine weeks. The best part was going in the field.
February 2, 1998
It was a wet and rainy day. the first thing we did was to go on a boat that took us through the mangrove forest and around West Lake. We explored Horseshoe island. It is an island that was made by mangroves that collected sand particles in thier roots. We saw many birds like: the giant heron, the white ibis, turkey vulture, and some osprey.
For more information on the wetland birds click on BIRDS
February 10, 1998
Later we walked out to the lake edge and measured salinity of the estuary water and compared that to the salinity of sea water. We used a secchi disk to measure turbidity. That is the murkiness of the water. A volunteer guide showed us a lot of things that live in a tidal pool. We saw a movie that showed an aerial view of Broward County. It was showing that there ws hardly any vegetation except in West Lake Park
went to the beach to see how the sea water gets into the estuary. The we saw how hotels and stuff were developed on most of the beach but not in the park. We used seining buckets ( buckets with varied size screen bottoms) to sift all the layers of sand. We found a shark tooth and saw how timy some sand particles are. the sand up by the sea grape trees was thicker and darker. We learned it is because the leaves decompose and make dark dirt and the rocks crush to make beach sand and it is lighter and smaller pieces.March 10, 1998
On this trip some of the students went kayaking to exlore the lake and look for birds, mud animals and crabs. We had to get up close to see the little creatures. Other kids did landscaping o native Florida plants like ferns, sabal palms and land plants. Other kids went on the hike to fnd red mangrove seedlings and planted them. We saw how dry the land was near the Austrailian pines because the pines suck up all the water. We tasted the leaves of the black mangrove and they were salty. the Black mangrove sucks in the salty water and when there is too much salt in the plant it sends it out through the leaves. That is like when we sweat.
March 24, 1998
On this day we walked the South Trail or did art for the field guide. The volunteer that helped us with art was a police officer named Stephen H. He helped us draw detailed leaves and crabs. On the trail we found a spot that needed lots of replanting and we planted lots of red mangrove seedlings which look like green cigars. We watched the tide line get lower and figured that the tide was going out. Judy Sulser, the naturalist taught us about tides and the connection of West Lake and the Atlantic Ocean. We will finish the field guide by May and print up lots of copies for people that visit the park in the future. We thank Ann Kolb for all her efforts to save the park. Go to our ANN KOLB page
As kids write to us and tell us what they do to save wetlands in their area we will write about
them on this page. Send us your story by clicking SURVEY