Backyard Stream Science

Sat, 9 Feb 2008 08:28:13 -0600

This Fall Madie and I started doing a science project down at the creek in our back yard. I thought it would be a nice way to introduce a little science and get all muddy at the same time. Who doesn’t love a little mud and science. The project is based on the effects weather and precipitation have on stream dynamics including water temperature, flow velocity and liters per minute flow. I put together a short gallery in the “Photos” section of the site showing the creek and some of the measurement techniques we are using.
I asked Madie a few questions in the beginning like “What do you think will happen to the total amount of water flowing trough the creek after it rains?”. She nailed this one; more rain = more water in the creek. She had no idea about the effects of air temperature or other things like velocity. So we just started going out a couple of times a week and taking measurements. Here is what we looked at:

Air temperature (with daily high and low) and Water temperature
Total precipitation
Flow speed (measured with a transparent velocity head meter pictured above)
Total dissolved nitrates and nitrites
Total dissolved chlorine
pH
Total streamflow (from velocity and dimension measurements of the channel)

The total cost of this project was about $30. I had to buy a small thermometer for water temp. measurements. Some Plexiglass and ruler for the velocity head meter. The pH, Nitrogen and chlorine test strips I found online at a science supply store. Finally I picked up a cheap pair of rubber boots from Wal-Mart for wading through the mud and water (Madie already had some rain boots).

Once we get enough data to make some nice graphs I will turn this into a separate page. For now, we are just having fun getting a little dirty and doing some sweet science.

Madie’s mouth grows up.

Sat, 2 Feb 2008 11:15:10 -0600

Madie lost another tooth this week. That makes it #4. She wrote the Tooth Fairy a really nice note asking politely for a Unicorn Webkinz. Luckily the Fairy was able to find said Unicorn at a local store that night and all was well with our quest to indoctrinate our children into a belief in magic and the supernatural. All kidding aside, I did attempt to walk Madie through some critical reasoning on the feasibility of Santa and the Tooth Fairy. But she was able to justify her belief system with some circular logic. Oh well! Maybe next year.

What’s Going On.

Backyard Stream Science

Madie’s mouth grows up.