Making Equipment for Field Studies
Making your own gear for monitoring many different types of environments raises many questions related to function, reliability, accuracy, calibration, time and cost of constructions, skills and equipment needs for construction. All these questions need to be considered by students and teachers in the process of designing, building, testing, calibration and the following redesign and rebuilding. This process both engages and creates a fundamental understanding on the part of participants.
The projects listed below almost all begin with an idea, many from outside sources, some from the teachers and others form the students in a give and take of ideas. The collaborative processes associated with building, testing and using your own gear are long lasting.
The list below outlines a number of the pieces of gear the ES class has developed and used on the past 22 years. Follow the category headings for more detailed descriptions regarding how these were made and used.
Aquatic study gear
Making your own gear for monitoring many different types of environments raises many questions related to function, reliability, accuracy, calibration, time and cost of constructions, skills and equipment needs for construction. All these questions need to be considered by students and teachers in the process of designing, building, testing, calibration and the following redesign and rebuilding. This process both engages and creates a fundamental understanding on the part of participants.
The projects listed below almost all begin with an idea, many from outside sources, some from the teachers and others form the students in a give and take of ideas. The collaborative processes associated with building, testing and using your own gear are long lasting.
The list below outlines a number of the pieces of gear the ES class has developed and used on the past 22 years. Follow the category headings for more detailed descriptions regarding how these were made and used.
Aquatic study gear
- Surber swift water samplers
- V notch weir
- Flow meters
- Aquatic invert key
- Sucker-uppers
- Diatom Key
- Stream flow dynamics tables
- Paleoliminology, under ice sampling gear
- Core holders
- Go-no-go gauge
- 5 and 10 m lines
- quadrats plots
- clinometes and cell phones
- Marine intertidal keys for different substrates
- Fine material sieves
- Shorekeepers grids
- Marine aquarium with tidal movements
- Snow profile charts
- Snow depth accumulation sticks
- Snow water equivalents measurements
- Snow profile water equivalents
- Seasonal rain gauge
- Wind sock wind velocity and direction
- Cloud ID chart
- Soil studies charts
- Infiltration rate measurement system
- School turning composers
- Soil pH measurements
- Hare droppings counts plots
- Shore crab mark recapture
- Red Wing Blackbird spring census
- In-stream salmon egg incubators
- Automatic fish feeders
- Mosquito sampling structure
- Salmon fry measurement
- Salmon fry sea lice counts