Meeting Notes

Using digital cameras, students collected photos of vegetation and wildlife surrounding the pond area.  Students also rote observations in their journals regarding the photos being taken.   Later students will use field guides to identify vegetation and wildlife.

David Cantlin from the City of Fife discussed the pond's origin (man made retention ponds built in conjunction with Dacca Park).  He also informed stduents that the pond recieves regular water treatment, in order to receive treatments the amount of water had to be determined.  He brought a large aerial map for stduents to use in order to determine the approximate volume of water being held in the pond.  The equation for the pond's water volume is "width x length x average depth".  The average depth is 4 ft. 

Nicole Rickets, from the Department of Fish and Wildlife, talked with the students about the importance of data collection and nature mapping.

Nicole Rickets from the Department of Fish and Wildlife spoke to students during our December 12th meeting about the importance of data collection in the field and nature mapping. The nature mapping program is a joint outreach program (developed by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the University of Washington Gap Analysis Project) to promote biodiversity studies through citizens and school-based data collection and research. The objective is to empower citizens to plan and manage resources for a community within a watershed.

Jayme Gordon from the local Stream Team talked with students about the purpose of wetlands.  As an introduction Jayme brought maps of the surrounding area showing various water features, as well as Wapato creeks flow direction.  Students were surprised to find out that its water flow is actually diverted underground as it leaves the Fife area on its way to Puget Sound.   She also discussed manmade versus natural pond systems, streams, and large bodies of water.  To demonstrate the purpose of wetlands she created three surface models to show the results of urbanization to Pond watch members.  The models simulated the rate of water flow on concrete surfaces (aluminum pan), farmland (pan with a cloth and 1 sponge), and finally, a wetland area which consisted of a pan with three sponges.  Students timed the flow rate over each surface then concluded that a wetlands purpose is to “absorb” and hold excess water.