Wow!  What an amazing experience we had on Friday with the UMass Fisheries biologists! A huge shout out of thanks to Matt Devine, Alyson Roy, and the team of undergrads, grad students, and post-docs who volunteered their time and energy to take us on a guided tour of field research at Roaring Brook in Leverett, followed by lab work and research in Holdsworth Hall at the University of Massachusetts.

Roaring Brook stations: river sediment and substrate, bank conditions, and river speed:

Macro-invertebrate collection and identification:

Electro-fishing

And fish identification:

 

Then we went back to the labs for fish dissection:

Microscope investigations using dichotomous traits (a kind of scientific choose your own adventure) to

identify macro invertebrates:

We also looked at different types of nets that are used to capture fish (Vanessa and baby Wyatt helped with this station!):

We investigated preserved herring (alewife) and looked at 3-D printed models of herring at different

life stages (more dissection photos too!):

A thousand thanks to all of the UMass Fisheries Biologists who volunteered their time, expertise, and enthusiasm to help make this an amazing field trip!  Thanks especially to Matt Devine and Alyson Roy for coordinating it all! Thanks to Vanessa Bergmann for scouting the sites with Matt, working behind the scenes to make it all happen smoothly and including us in the project. And special thanks to 11 month old Wyatt for helping out and being so incredibly cute! What a wonderful experience for the Leverett Fifth Graders!