Taylorsville Elementary School
 Columbus Indiana

 

We are a third grade class at Taylorsville Elementary School near Columbus, Indiana.  Our class has 26 students, and our school
 has about 550 students pre-k through 6th grades.  Our teacher collected pond water from Mill Race Park and from a small pond in her daughter’s housing addition.  The pond water from the park was stinky, muddy, murky, and nasty.  We think it was polluted because we didn’t find many macro organisms.    The other pond water was cleaner and had more organisms.  We found: 
 

greater water boatman – 4 
water stick - 1
diving water beetle -5
water spider – 2
aquatic worms - 9
cyclops - 1
beetle larva -1
midge -1                                                         dragonfly nymph –2

  blood worm - 17
 pond skater - 1
mayfly nymph - 2
water mite - 3
 water fleas - 10
saucer bug – 3
lesser water boatman – 1
insect larva - 1
flat worm – 1  

All of our class has predicted in our hypothesis that we would find different macro organisms than found in ponds in other parts of the world.  We thought their climates and different locations would mean different kinds of habitats with different organisms.  We are anxious to read reports from other classes around the world to see if we are right.

3rd grade

Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation

Fall 2006