Experiments in the Swamp

Yesterday we went to a swamp on the northeast side of Lake Pontchartrain to set up an experiment in the swamp. We took a 100' long "water structure" and a pump with us to set up an area by the water in the swamp with the idea of flooding a small area for about three days. The scientists are then going to study the effects of the flooding on the soil and the plants. In a way, they intend to simulate another small Hurricane Katrina in that spot. We ran into problems with the pump, however, so had to roll the water structure back up and head back to New Orleans until they can get new accessories for the pump. The water structure weighed about 150 pounds, which we had to carry into the swamp and unroll. The rubber boots that I had on were not quite high enough--got a little wet! The water structure is acutally two rubber tubes to hold water covered by a plastic roll around it to hold the tubes in place. This was in a place where people had homes that had been destroyed by the hurricane. In order to roll out the water structure, we had to lift items like doors, light fixtures, pieces of wood, etc. that had once been someone's house and throw them somewhere else.
We may be going back again tomorrow and trying again. It was interesting talking to the scientists and learning about how they have to apply for grants, etc., to get the money to do their research.
Yesterday afternoon I learned how to feed caterpillars. These were not caterpillars that they collected from the swamp, but ones that they raise in the lab to dissect and do research on. We just had to put a clump of food that looks and smells like bad cheese in a cup, pick out five caterpillars from the old cup, and put them into the new cup. They don't want more than five caterpillars in a cup.
Today I went to the mud room (also called the zoo) and searched the bags for anything that was moving, such as a moth. We then entered it into the database. We were supposed to go to Honey Island Swamp today, but it is raining very hard right now, so I'm just going to work on entering things into the database this afernoon. Some of the other teachers went yesterday. They brought back some very interesting pictures of some very large alligators!!!! Maybe it's a good thing that we're not going out there today . . . They searched out there all day, and only brought back about 15 caterpillars. They use GPS positioning to pick out what area of the swamp they want to go to, pick out a tree to position, and then work in a small area based on that tree. In that way, they keep track of where each caterpillar came from.