Today the students had an action-packed day focusing on water quality. They visited two sites in Ann Arbor to get wet and muddy collecting macroinvertebrates – small organisms that live in the mud, like: snails, leeches, aquatic worms, mayfly larva, damselfly larva, and others.

Some of these organisms can tolerate polluted waters and others can’t. One of our sites was a low pollution site and the other was not as healthy. They were able to use the presence and abundance of these macroinvertebrates to learn about each location’s water quality. They also used chemistry sets to take water measurements to add to their knowledge of the overall water’s health.

After that they toured Prof. Gregory Dick’s lab at U-M who discussed his environmental microbiology work on the harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie.

They finished the day kayaking the Huron River – the source of Ann Arbor’s drinking water. They all went through “The Cascades” – a series of shoots as the water level drops rapidly in the river.

Another great day with a great group of students!