A Cruise Through the Meadowlands

Today around 16 STEMmers went to the Meadowlands in New Jersey.  We immediately went to the dock where we split into groups of 8 and then proceeded to boarding 2 lovely pontoon boats.  Then we were off!  Angelo, the man in charge of the tour took us through the Meadowlands.  He pointed out varieties of birds and explained the fish that can be found in the brackish water of the Meadowlands.  Around halfway through the tour we stopped and did some water testing.  We tested the water's pH which was around 7.5 (nice) as well as the turbidity (not so nice).  Turbidity is basically how clear or hazy the water is.  The water was not very clear.  After that we continued our tour.  We were out on the water for around and hour and a half.  Sunburn was everywhere!  Overall the trip was very relaxing but insightful.  I learned a lot about the Meadowlands and the importance of sunscreen.

Trees in the Meadowland are a great place for hawks to make their nests!
 

Aquaponics

Aquaponics
Throughout the winter, a specific group of students have been diligently growing and maintaining a small scale aquaponics system. I worked with two other girls, Nicole and Issy, as we tried to grow wheatgrass, green beans, and basil with our fish Hercules. The project was rewarding in the sense that each time we returned to class, there was growth. This made the frequent logs and tests bearable, as there was actually something to log about. The wheatgrass grew the fastest and most abundantly. During the early months, we got to know our fish and determined that he was stressed. Hercules was showing symptoms of lack of eating and swimming and being the physicians we are, with the help of google, decided that he was stressed. The cure was to raise the temperature of the water, which we did by making a sign asking other students not to open the window near our tank.

Flash forward three months later. It is late spring. Hercules has unfortunately passed away. He had been becoming paler and paler as the days passed, he wasn't eating and wasn't able to swim. Along with his sickness, many of our plants started to dry up. Our teacher made the executive decision to put him out of his misery and so we did(placing him in an alcohol solution that killed him instantly.) we made sure to have a proper funeral in his memory.

Although Hercules didn't make it, my group now has all of the necessary skills to create a larger aquaponics system!

Guerrilla Gardening

As part of Montclair High School's STEM Academy a group of students have taken on the project of planting various fruits and vegetables. So far we have tomatoes, watermelon, parsley, and a variety of beans. It has been amazing to foster these plants from mere seeds into the budding sprouts.
We first planted our seeds in large incubator trays where their roots were able to initially take hold. Then, once slightly matured, we transferred these seedlings into individual pots where they will be able to grow tall and strong.

Transferring these plants was a bit of an ordeal. It is imperative that the roots stay intact during the plants' move, so being gentle is key. As students, we divided up the jobs into a sort of gardening assembly line. One removed the young plants out of the tray, one prepped the pots with the initial soil, another planted the vegetables in their new homes, someone watered, and our supervisor made sure that everything ran as smoothly as possible. 

It was great to be able to utilize this life skill, gardening, in a productive and beneficial way. We hope to sell or trade our goods at a community swap. This swap is to promote healthy, organic, self-grown plants in our community. 

This swap will take place Saturday, May 24th at the Crane House in Montclair. (Ms. Eckert here...Actually, the swap already took place this past Saturday....heard it was a rousing success!)

Rand Park Project - Pollinating Garden!

STEM has two main projects going on right now and they are the large scale aquaponics system and greenhouse as well as the Rand Park project.  A handful of STEM students recently gave a presentation to the town council members, the Mayor, and Dr. Penny MacCormack, where we talked about our garden plans for Rand Park.  Hopefully the project will get approved and we can begin digging on Monday!  The group I am in is working on a pollinating garden.  We hope to attract bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.  The goal is pollination, and a safe habitat of these insects since some of which are endangered.  This project will take a lot of hard work and dedication but in a few years the gardens should be beautiful and flourishing.

       STEM has been working on building an aquaponics system. But before the large-scale system is built, we worked on small scale models first. By working on these small scale models, we were able to develop a better understanding of aquaponics. The small scale models have prepared STEM for what to expect with our full scale aquaponics system. STEM  is currently working on creating the greenhouse, and design for this aquaponics system.

Thriving small scale aquaponics system

Town Council Meeting

    This past week was very exciting for the STEM academy. We presented our garden ideas for the landscaping of Rand Park alongside the Architecture Club's ideas for the hard-scaping. I, myself, was apart of the group that presented. As a group we created a PowerPoint explaining each of the ideas and goals, stressing the positive environmental impact as well as the opportunity to use the data collected from the animals and insects we hope to attract as part of various citizen science projects.
     The meeting was held in the town municipal building and provided a very genuine experience, as many of the town specialists as well as, the mayor and our superintendent were all present. I look forward to many similar experiences to come.

I think it is safe to say as soon as this is approved, STEM will most definitely be taken more seriously.

Small scale aquaponics system

Early this year we started using small scale aquaponics systems were we grow basil, wheat grass etc. with a beta fish in a small tank bellow the grow bed.

Every other day we feed the fish and test the tank water for certain parameters such a pH level, ammonia level, and nitrate level. We test these parameters because a beta fish can only tolerate certain levels of Ph, ammonia and nitrate. We also experiment with feeding the fish such as if feeding them too much or too little will effect these parameters. 

Field Trip to Sandy Hook

Last Thursday (May 8th), Ms. English and Mr. Haas took about 30 STEM students to Sandy Hook. I really enjoyed this trip, even though the weather was not in our favor. I liked that it was really hand-on.
When we got off the bus a woman (whose name happened to be Sandy) brought us to one of many tall, yellow buildings where she and her coworkers work and do research about Sandy Hook and areas around it.  Sandy and her coworker Mindy took us down to the beach where they introduced some types of shells and rocks to us and told us to be on the lookout to find more on the beach. We spent most of our time on the beach, measuring it and timing how fast the current was going. Ms. English handed out some plastic bags and Erica and I loaded up on unique shells and rocks, some of which I had now learned the names for. Sandy and Mindy took us back to the yellow building and we did some experiments about the make-up of different types of sand.
This was my favorite field trip so far!
Here are some bivalve shells vs. univalve shells:

Updates on our small scale aquaponic system

Just as Kevin Bollinger mentioned in a previous post, our aquaponic systems have been highly successful. My group's aquaponic system is growing bean sprouts, arugula, and basil. Our wheat grass, however, has been removed to make room for more unique plants. While our own aquaponic system is doing well, I cannot say the same for some of the other groups' systems. 3 fish have died since we have started, and we're not 100% sure what caused the deaths. One group has replaced their fish with 2 guppies, so the class can see how well other fish work in an aquaponic system. Furthermore, the aquaponic system next to mine is doing quite poorly, with no plants except for dying wheat grass. Despite some setbacks, our class is doing very well overall and I see a bright future for STEM.

Rand Park Project

This Monday STEM will get final okay to start gardening in Rand Park. It is a very exciting time to be apart of STEM.  Our  STEM group has been working really hard for the past few months hoping to beautify Rand Park.  Every  small group has a plan to plant specific plants for different goals, some are trying to grow food, others are trying to attract wildlife , and another  is  trying to control water runoff. For my group (Emma and I) we are specifically trying to attract monarch butterflies and hummingbirds . Out main plant is milkweed , which will help attract butterflies .  I really hope we get the last okay to start gardening on Monday!


This picture above shows a butterfly  on butterfly milkweed.

Early Results From Small Scale Aquaponics

Our small scale aquaponics systems have produced some very rewarding results.  It may have taken some time but, our results have been very informative.  Everyday we take test parameters to see what the water levels of our tank are and how those results are affecting our tank.  We test the pH, nitrate, and ammonia levels in the tank.  We look for a low ammonia level near 0 ppm, 2-10 ppm for nitrate, and a pH between 6.8-7.8.  All of these tests show us what is too high or low and then we must figure out why the levels in the tank have changed.  This will allow us to take our small scale experience and make our large scale be able to work as best as possible as long as we are able to handle the water parameters.  The fruits (or vegetables) of are labor are all worth it though.   

Our Freedom to Expand

With our small scale aquaponics system in the classroom, we have the freedom to conduct our own experiments and alter the circumstances of our individual projects. Originally, everyone started out with the same set up: One beta fish and wheatgrass seeds. Following the tragic death of my beta fish, Tea Cake, I was faced with many decisions for what to do next. I researched different types of fish that would work well in my system and was very curious about having more than one fish at a time. I spoke to an employee at a local pet store in Bloomfield about the types of fish that would not only provide for the plants and thrive in a small closed environment, but also could live with other fish. I finally decided on guppies, and now have two active fish that provide more than enough waste for my plants, which now include watermelon and coneflowers. 

The Rain/Erosion Gardens

So for our project (our being me, Michaela, as well as Viking and Alyssa) we decided to make a rain garden to help control water runoff. Though we learned that it can't necessarily be a rain garden because it does not fit the specific requirements of a rain garden. So we modified our original plan and made our garden more of an erosion garden to keep the hillside from being washed away. Oh by the way, we are planting this garden on the hill side that is near the corner of Chestnut and Park street.
We presented this plan to the town on Wednesday and so now we are crossing our fingers to hope that we get the permission to break ground!
The picture is of one of the areas where we want to plant a garden

Cool and Educational

Aquaponics Update

The fish in our aquaponics system are looking healthy for the most part. Excluding our three deceased ( RIP Ryder )

But Ringo, shown in the picture above, is providing the nutrients for all our plant friends above. We keep on experimenting with new things with our system, an example being how we recently started feed old Ringo far more than the normal levels of food to see what benefits/conssequence would come out of it, and what we found was very intriguing. It turned that the added food caused a dramatic increase in our nitrate levels, nitrate being essential for plant growth,  made this venture very beneficial to us. Everything going "A" okay over at STEM.

#ringorocks

By Kevin Dyer

Town Meeting-Alyssa Schiff

This past week has been very exciting in STEM as a few students, including myself, got to present an idea to the town council.  The Mayor, Dr. Penny MacCormack, Sarah Vogel, Robin Schlager, and many others were present.  Along with the Architecture club we presented our ideas.  It went very smoothly and the council members seemed supportive, fingers crossed that they approve our gardens!  It was an interesting experience and a little bit stressful beforehand, but once it got going the presentation went over very well.  I hope that we represented STEM to the best that we could, and that we get to do these types of things more often in the next two years that I will be a high school student.  Hopefully, on Monday we will hear the news that our plans are approved, but if not we still have the greenhouse project happening.  This week was definitely exciting and a pretty cool experience.

We even got a selfie with the mayor (Viking's idea obviously)

April 30, Sandy Hook Gateway National Park

  Went to Sandy Hook on April 30, sorry for the late post. It rained a little for the first part of our visit, but eventually tapered off. We visited one of the labs at the research institute, then went out to the ocean beach. We walked along the trails in the back shore area, and learned about different dune grasses and erosion. Lots of dead horseshoe crabs, which was sad. We did find a live one, a large female. We put her back but unfortunately did not get pictures of her. We also took some kind of measurement using large marked sticks, supposedly relating to the slope of the beach. Accuracy: doubtful. But we still got to carry around big sticks. We also took sand samples. And found a random hypodermic needle (called the beach patrol people and marked its location).
      Back at the lab we looked at the sand through various microscopes and found out that-surprise!-rough sand has larger grains. Who knew?
     They also had terrapin in a tank, which was exciting since I had never seen one before, only nests. They are not very large, but are quite aggressive toward wriggly things (like the drawstring on my hoodie).

The Very First Post

This blog is for the students, by the students but let me first introduce the MHS STEM Academy and some of our major projects. We have ambitious but doable goals and the intent of this blog is to document the progress, the obstacles and the blood, sweat and tears. (Hopefully no blood and tears, of course! But there will definitely be some sweat...) A major focus of our attention right now is the revitalization of Rand Park. It's a joint effort between the architecture club students and the STEM small learning community. We have been researching and planning/drawing designs for wildlife habitats and an outdoor classroom. Because Rand Park is a township park, we need approval from the town. We will be presenting to the mayor, town council and the parks/recreation department on Weds May 14th...we will be sure to blog about it! Here are a few pictures of the "before" Rand Park.

 Toney's Brook cuts through Rand Park. We have designed a series of riparian pollinator gardens...the only thing growing there now is Japanese knotweed.

There is a steep slope in a region of the Park off of Chestnut St. to Toney's Brook. STEM students have studied the area and are designing a garden to control erosion.

Erosion! Steep slope! And poor soil conditions/lots of roots...STEM problem-solving skills to the rescue.

This is the proposed site for our bird habitat. There are often crows in Rand Park. We like crows but we'd also like to attract many passerines. 

Japanese knotweed peaking through the rocky brook bottom. The town removed the knotweed in the fall but it is a tenacious plant. We want to plant natives that will hopefully crowd it out.

Here are some happy STEMmers!