Gorgeous Day checking water quality parameters_HPHS March 2017

Ravines as Art

Ravines are indeed made of clay!  One of our youngest Highland Park students, Lilia, made this wonderful statue of her grandmother from clay found in the ravine behind her house.

It is titled "Copy of You."

What's in it?

How does water quality affect the ravines?   Here are some student projects from last year that talk about these issues:

Water Quality and Minimizing Erosion

Stormwater

Chemicals in Lake Michigan

Getting Ready for FISH!

About 40 volunteers including HPHS students past and present -- Nicholas, Cara, Alyssa, Sarah, Jennifer, Leah, Edgar and Osvaldo--turned out this Saturday to help get the ravines ready for fish migration!



Read more in the Highland Park News Ravine Clean Up Day

Thanks to HPHS for taking part in our first ever Ravine Symposium!   The professionals who came to present all spoke highly of your interest, ideas and great questions.   Your scenario planning was inspiring!

We're looking forward to seeing everyone in a few weeks for our water quality testing field trip.

 

Thanks to all the HPHS students who turned out Saturday for Adopt a Beach!

Trout in the Classroom Update!

Rainbow Trout have been spotted hanging out at Rosewood Park this summer!  Likely these are some of the fish that HPHS, Oak Terrace and Red Oak released this spring.  We also documented a species we haven't seen in the streams before:  Yellow Perch.  Here is one of the trout...which we put back happily in the stream after the photo shoot!

Thanks to the Awesome Class of 2016!

We had amazing student projects this year!  You explored topics from habitat structure to impacts of pollution to economic value of the Great Lakes!   You created surveys, websites, power points with moving parts, lesson plans and posters!

We are excited to present some of your projects at the Regional Ravine Symposium on June 1.

And you raised fish too!

Trout Lesson Plan

PCB Levels in Lake Michigan

Human Impacts on Lake Michigan

Canopy Growth in Ravines

Erosion in Ravines

Role of Pollution in Birth Defects

Economic Value of Lake Michigan and its Fish

Highland Park Ravines (website)

Fish Out of Water

A waterfall climbing cave fish found in Thailand has a primitive pelvic bone and fused spine that allow it to use each of four fins to navigate (rather than just pulling itself along on front fins).  It may be a link to a significant evolutionary adaptation:  the ability to walk on land.

Happy World Water Day!

Thanks so much to Janette Marsh from USEPA's Region 5 Chicago, Water Division for coming out with us today!  So cool that she told us how important your work is--getting to know your own watershed.

Here is the link she mentioned for USEPA water resources.

National Aquatic Resource Surveys

Help for Research Questions!

Liz and I enjoyed visiting all of you in class!  Sounds like you guys have a lot of great project ideas.  Here are some resources that might be helpful.

Lots of you are interested in water quality and pollution issues.   We will be learning more about that when you visit the ravine next week.  Meantime, the Illinois EPA monitors pollutants in Lake Michigan and you can find a lot of their information here.

Flooding is an issue dealt with by the Lake County Stormwater Management Commission.  They have a lot of good information about how rain gardens and other rain harvesting tactics can reduce stormwater runoff.

Salt is a pollutant in our fresh water.  Here is a paper on the Effects of Road Salt on Chicago water.
Here is an article about Highland Park's annual salt use.

If you want to know more about native and non native plants in the ravines, including aquatic invasive plants, go this page at www.pdhp.org.

Click here to see the adult Rainbow Trout that visited the ravine last spring.

What Do You Want to Know?