Spring Pond Water Study {Pond Study: Week 7}

spring pond water study

In week seven of our one year pond study we will be doing a spring pond water study. The pond seemed so quiet this week, there weren’t many photos to be had.  Nesting perhaps?  There was the odd duck having a sleep, our beautiful Mandarin duck and some lovely reflections:

In week 5 we rescued an injured duck which you can check out here!

Spring Pond Water Study
Mandarin Duck
Sleeping duck

Read More! Introduction to our one year pond study

This week I wanted to study the water in greater depth.  We did a bit about water in week 2 when we studied the pollution in the pond.  So far this pond study has been more about looking, watching and enjoying.  I wanted to push it a little bit deeper. 

Click here for our initial pond assessment

Goals for the Spring Pond Water Study

  1. Level of the water (including measures to control the water-ecology/ conservation)
  2. Temperature of Water
  3. Clarity
  4. Water pH
  5. Microscopic life found in the water (concentrating primarily on this)

Level of the Water

Do you remember the ‘No Fishing’ sign from week 2? Well, it’s almost buried now:

Spring Pond Water Study

A few weeks ago the children were wondering what happened when there was too much rain.  So I told them to look around the pond’s edge and see if they could discover for themselves.  They came across this:

An over-flow pipe

The pond is situated on the side of a road and when it used to fill up, it overflowed onto the road, flooding it.  The conservators have dug a ditch the other side of the road and laid an overflow pipe which goes directly under the road to overflow into the ditch, preventing any flooding.

The Temperature of the Pond Water

Next T11 measured the temperature of the water:

T11 taking the water’s temperature

The temperature of the water was 11 degrees Celsius.  We didn’t take the temperature last time, but I’ll be doing it monthly from now on and I’ll chart it at the end of the year.

Clarity of the Water

Find Out More! Read our thoughts on our investigation of pond pollution in week 2

Last time we checked the clarity by looking at the water when we returned home, which we still did, but L10 also checked it out through our periscope:

Using the Periscope, L10 said she was able to see through the water, but not very clearly.

Measuring the pH of the Water

Water pH we checked as before and it was the same at 8.  I’m really looking forward to seeing if this changes at all as the weather heats up (if, in deed, it ever does!).

Collecting Water for a Spring Pond Water Study at Home

Water was collected from the pond

And Taking it Home…

Next was, for all of us, the really fun part…digging deeper:

Spring Pond Water Study
When we got home we let it settle and then had a good look with just our eyes to see if we could see anything
Spring Pond Water Study
Then placing our magnifier pot on top of a clear jar, so that light flowed in from all directions (making it much clearer to see anything) we checked out a sample of the water to see if a slight magnification helped any. It didn’t!

The exciting part was yet to come.  Years ago we had found a TV screen microscope, which magnifies things by 50, at a charity shop.  I made up some slides for the children using a long pipette and trying to ‘capture’ any movement I saw.  One by one we put them under the microscope to see what we could see. 

Spring Pond Water Study
This was a simple sample of the pond water. It has so much life in it! None visiable to the naked eye and in fact even magnified it was hard to make out shapes of some of the creatures.
Spring Pond Water Study
This picture shows a piece of dirt, but the life it had swimming around it was amazing! We saw lots of types of single cell algae, bacteria and water bears. Cropping it doesn’t make it any clearer, but they were all there in abundance
Copepods

Using this website (which I really, really, really recommend) and its very clear and helpful sheet, we attempted to identify anything we saw. First up was a copepod:

Spring Pond Water Study
This was a copepod called a Cyclops, on account of its single eye.
Spring Pond Water Study
and the same photo cropped
Oligochaete

Next, an Oligochaete worm (Phylum Annelida, Class Oligochaete) have bristles which they use to grip things when they are creeping between water plants or when at the bottom of the pond. They are transparent, with clearly visible internal organs. Their stomach contents show glimpses of their prey:

Spring Pond Water Study
This was of a wiggly microscopic worm. They were see through with a bare eye, but you could sort of ‘see’ them through the movement of the water.
Spring Pond Water Study
And up close

Read more about pond ecosystems in our week 6 study

I can’t tell you how much fun this was!  After I had done all I had wanted to, I left the children to explore.  They were there for ages, making up slides and looking for more life.  It was so good!  I might have to get the children to do a microscopic analysis of the pond water each week, so we can build a clear picture of all the life there is to found in a pond.  Loving our pond study!

Click here if you’d like to read a bit more about our initial tree study by the pond and here if you’d like to read more about the fauna we found at our pond in week 4

 

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