Personal Narrative: The Merrimack Watershed
There I am sitting in my canoe, I close my eyes and just listen. I listen to the trees swaying in the breeze, the raindrops pitter-patting on my coat, the movement of the paddle as it dips into the water. I picture the beautiful autumn foliage that surrounds me as leaves gently fall from the tree onto the surface of the water and make a print on the water, even if it is only there for a second. As English writer William Hazlitt once said “We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.” This is how I felt out on the river during our trip, I felt like I could really understand and appreciate the beauty and serene peace of being one with nature. I also felt like I could appreciate the care that it takes to keep
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According to the U.S EPA, a watershed is the area of land where all of the water that is under it or drains off of it goes into the same place. On our trip we were able to conduct some experiments on the water. Our group did an experiment on the pH of the river water. The pH was around 7-7.5, which according to the scale is neutral. This number means that the pH of the river water is close to the pH of tap water, but we still probably shouldn’t drink the river water without filtering it first. Another experiment we did in class after the field trip was to calculate the Biotic Index Rating of the river to figure out how polluted the water was. In order to do this we took the number of a certain species living in the water and multiplied that amount by their tolerance level (how much the species can stand pollution). That product was our Biotic Index Value. Next we divided the Biotic Index Value by the total number of organisms. This gave us our Biotic Index Rating, which for the Nashua River ( a tributary of the Merrimack River) was about 5.97. According to the scale given meant that the water quality was good, but might be slightly impaired. I went on this similar field trip in fifth grade, where I did similar experiments . I’m glad I got to go again, because this time the experiments and explanations were much deeper, and my experience out on the river was much more
According to the U.S EPA, a watershed is the area of land where all of the water that is under it or drains off of it goes into the same place. On our trip we were able to conduct some experiments on the water. Our group did an experiment on the pH of the river water. The pH was around 7-7.5, which according to the scale is neutral. This number means that the pH of the river water is close to the pH of tap water, but we still probably shouldn’t drink the river water without filtering it first. Another experiment we did in class after the field trip was to calculate the Biotic Index Rating of the river to figure out how polluted the water was. In order to do this we took the number of a certain species living in the water and multiplied that amount by their tolerance level (how much the species can stand pollution). That product was our Biotic Index Value. Next we divided the Biotic Index Value by the total number of organisms. This gave us our Biotic Index Rating, which for the Nashua River ( a tributary of the Merrimack River) was about 5.97. According to the scale given meant that the water quality was good, but might be slightly impaired. I went on this similar field trip in fifth grade, where I did similar experiments . I’m glad I got to go again, because this time the experiments and explanations were much deeper, and my experience out on the river was much more