River Study Trip

by Greer McQuay, Year 4, Room 18

We went to the Patea beside the Scout Den to study macroinvertibrates. The water was clear and bubbly over the rapids. The rocks were slippery with greeny brown moss. The water was cold and fast flowing. When we went into the riverbed we looked for macroinvertibrates in a runnel of the river.
The river creatures
We scrubbed the rocks with our fingers and caught the bugs in a sieve. The we tipped the stuff out of the sieve into a tray with water in it. We studied the creatures in a tray to identify them. We picked them up with tweezers and put them in a specimen box.
Macroinvertibrates
The river creatures are called macroinvertibrates. Macroinvertibrates are small river creatures you can see with your own eyes. We found Mayflies, Caddis flies, beetles, Stoneflies, Sand flies, Crane flies, Roundworms, and Dobson flies.
Floating our rafts
Some rafts sank, some rafts crashed into rocks, some rafts successfully floated down the runnel without crashing or getting stuck.