Greetings from the West Geauga Wolverines!
We are students at West Geauga High School, located in Geauga County in Northeast Ohio. "Geauga" is a Native American word that means "raccoon". We are in Mr. Waltons 9th grade Earth Science class. Our high school has approximately 800 students and our school mascot is the wolverine.
We will be testing water in two different places: a small stream that runs through a woodland area and a small pond in a neighboring housing area. We have determined that our testing sites are at latitude 41,30,30 and longitude 81,20. We are receiving help from the Geauga Soil and Water Conservation District in the form of funding for the test kits and technical guidance throughout the project.
The pond and stream that we are testing are located in the Chagrin River watershed, a sub-basin of the Lake Erie watershed. Lake Erie is one of the six Great Lakes. The Great Lakes system is the largest system of fresh surface water on earth. Together, the lake holds about 5,500 cubic miles of water! This is over 18% of the world's supply.
Our goals for this project are to assess the quality of water based on physical, chemical and biological characteristics, and to compare and contrast the water quality of a stream and a pond based on these characteristics.
We are glad to be participating in the Global Water Sampling Project because it will give us a chance to participate in some environmental experiments while utilizing newly learned skills, then contributing the data to the Global Water Sampling Project via the internet. We look forward to comparing our experiences with people all over the world!