Proctor Pond Blog

At Proctor Academy there is small yet fascinating pond that is on its campus. The pond is in the center of the campus next to Shirley hall, Slocumb hall and the Lovejoy Library. On an everyday basis I get to pass the pond but I've never gone in it or tested whats in it. Over the pass couple of cold days in October Shashi and I had the chance to test whats the water is like and see what living organisms are in it.

On an early Tuesday morning around 9:05, Shashi and I set out to our site and test the proctor pond. We were given materials from Alan that included a spoon, a net, a little magnifying glass, a pipette, a sheet that had all different types of creatures on it, a bucket where we put all things we scooped up and a little container where we put the creatures we found in. We picked sites where we would test and our site was right next to Shirley hall.
















My first examination of the pond was that there was a lot of biotic factors that was in it. There were lily pads, creatures in the water, and algae surrounding the pond. We begin scoop in the water and see what kind of organisms were in these waters. When we would scoop along the bottom of the water we collected a lot of muck and leaves. When we placed all of that stuff in bucket that was filled up with water, we begin to clear it up and see what types of organisms were in it. There was a lot of water boats, little beetles, and little back swimmers. When I scooped on the top of the surface I caught a tadpole and a little fish. It was really exciting and interesting what we caught!

As we were scooping for organisms, Alan came over to us and gave us equipment to begin to do tests on the pond. The tests included water temperature, phosphate, turbidity and ph. The temperature of the water was 61 degrees Fahrenheit. To find the turbidity Shashi filled a cylinder with water and put it over a sheet of paper with the different level of turbidity. After putting the cylinder over the different shades, the turbidity was 0-20JTU. We filled up a little tub of water up to 10ml and put a little tablet in it to find the ph level. After shaking it up the tablet dissolved and the water was a light yellow color. This determined that the ph level was a 6 in the pond. The last its was the phosphate. Similar to the ph, we filled a tube up to 5ml and put a tablet in it. I shook it up and after 5 minutes the water turned a light blue. The phosphate was a 1. Also, Alan put a little machine in the water to find the temperature and the dissolved oxygen. After getting the results Alan read to us that it was 3 to 2.4 for the dissolved oxygen.











































There was so much about the pond that I didn't know about. Everyday I walk by the pond and never think whats in the pond or whats the water like. There was a lot of biodiversity in the pond because of all the different creatures that we caught and saw in it. I think doing this kind of work is fascinating. Instead of learning this stuff in the classroom, we get a hands on learning and experience of all these things by ourselves. Experiencing these studies and tests in person gives me a better understanding of the material we learn in class

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