Environment DEC
From the November 2008 issue
Students Enjoy Learning about "A Day in the Life of the Hudson River"
DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis joins students in an exercise to determine the river's pH.
Early last month, students from schools along the Hudson River, from near the New York Harbor to Troy's federal dam, participated in the sixth annual "A Day in the Life of the Hudson River" field program. Hosted by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's (DEC) Hudson River Estuary Program, this event is aimed at educating Hudson Valley residents about the ecology of the river through innovative and engaging public programs and a new K-12 curriculum.
Teams of students and environmental educators used tools such as seine nets and lab equipment to investigate the variety and number of fish; types of aquatic plants, algae and phytoplankton; the temperature and pH of the water; and the concentration of key chemical components in the river, such as salt and dissolved oxygen. Many also collected core samples of river-bottom mud for analysis by the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in Palisades, Rockland County. Using Web-based distance-learning video technology, students shared their data, enabling them to better understand how their piece of the river fits into the larger Hudson estuary ecosystem.
Ongoing Instruction
A DEC staff person and Commissioner Grannis position the seine net to gather samples of the Hudson's aquatic life.
Data from the event was incorporated into the curriculum developed by the Hudson River Estuary Program, which is available to all teachers in the Hudson Valley. It was added to the "Day in the Life of the Hudson River" page on DEC's website. This year, for the first time, teachers can continue to use the Hudson River as the centerpiece of classroom lessons in science, math, social studies and language arts with new Hudson River lesson plans. The first installment of a standards-driven, place-based and interdisciplinary K-12 curriculum centered on the Hudson River is available free online.
Using this data, students can study how the distribution of fish species varies with salinity or observe how, at any given time, tidal phenomena may differ from place to place along the estuary. While stories of pollution still color public perception of the Hudson, oxygen levels--whose readings vary due to time of day, wind conditions and the presence of plants and algae--are in the range of 6-10 milligrams per liter, indicating a generally healthy ecosystem.
Quadricentennial
Promoting public understanding of the Hudson River is one of a dozen goals in the Hudson River Estuary Program's Action Agenda. In 2009, New York will celebrate the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's 1609 voyage up the Hudson River. By then, the Estuary Program aims to make a riverfront field station accessible to every school district in the Hudson Valley and increase the program's curriculum offerings so that schools throughout the region can focus attention on the history and ecology of the river throughout the year.
