Every week we will put out 24 sherman traps and 4 drop traps on three different sites surrounding the small pond. The traps are baiting, but not set three days ahead of time. Then on the morning of club meetings the traps are rebaitd and set. In the past only we catch a animal only about 20% of the time. We also set out track tubes to monitor small mammal activity.

Here is the most important part of club meetings...the recording of data. One thing we learn in Discovery Club is that wildlife research means carefully recording data over a long period of time.

Something new that we are trying this year is recording the water temperature at two different water depths...3 inches and 9 inches. At the beginning of fall the 3 inch temperature is warmer than the 9 inch temperature. We are wondering if this will change as the air temperature get colder????

Here's Aaron taking a measurement of the Secci distance. The water in the lake is pretty icky...but we are wondering if it will clear up as the water gets colder and the algae dies off.

Here we are measuring dissolved oxygen. We have all ready noted that the level in the pond is very low. The level in the lake is very high, but seems to drop as the fall goes on.

Each week we take a water sample from the lake and pond to measure nitrate levels. Most weeks we have to dilute our sample because the nitrate levels are off the scale of our test. .