Led by Todd Fritchman, president of Envirotech, fifth-graders from Jacqueline Kisiel’s science class participated in a hands-on study of aquatic macro-invertebrates.

“Today, you are all biologists,” Fritchman told the 10- and 11-year-old students.

The children worked in pairs, with each pair studying a sample from Silver Lake, Lake Gerar or a controlled environment.

Macro-invertebrates, Fritchman pointed out, are organisms with no spinal cord that are small but visible to the naked eye.

Nearly 50 children took part in the second of two class sessions conducting the experiment.

The students were inquisitive, and teams battled to top each other with what they found in their samples. Among the finds were leeches, crayfish, nymphs, insect larvae and baby fish.
Perhaps the most impressive find was by student Kevol Benjamin, who found a dragonfly nymph so large that it could barely be contained in the small dish the students were given to hold their finds.

The results of the experiment will be used by Save Our Lakes Alliance 3 (SOLA3), which underwrote the study, for further study of the environments of Silver Lake and Lake Gerar.
The objective, SOLA3 President Sallie Forman said, was to increase the students’ awareness and understanding of the role and significance of macro-invertebrates in aquatic ecosystems.

The students will also conduct further study of the results as part of their classroom activities.

“You guys did outstanding because one of the main skills of a scientist is observation skills,” Fritchman said to the class.

“You guys found a lot of things the other group didn’t find.”