Water Quality B/C

[mnstrviola]

Will they replace the salinometer portion of the test? In my experience, it's been quite a hassle for event supervisors to arrange the water testing station of the test.

BUT IT'S SUCH AN EASY POINT!!!!! And if you have stations at the tournament it's a great time to play catch up with the past stations.

Well, it's easy for the students, but hard for the supervisors, because trying to fill a huge tub/container with salt water is probably not one of their first priorities.

Also, does anyone have any suggestions on live bugs in the Macroinvertebrate portion of the test? I've found that it's a hassle for the event supervisors as well.....
And on a final note: is there such thing as salinometer protocol? My partner and I were apparently judged on that during the competition.

I don't see how hard it is to measure out the water and salt to create the salt water solution, as soinc.org clearly described how to do so. It also is a nice hands-on part of the event that makes it a little more interesting.

Also, what do you mean by "salinometer protocol"?

[fozendog]

I think "Salinometer Protocol" means how you used it and if the process of testing it was correct. It shouldn't really be a point at a tournament because there are many different ways of testing the salinity of the water.

[CulturallyScientific]

The only tournament that had live macros that I went to was Nationals. All the other tournaments had pictures to identify them. Live macros are HORRIBLE as well because if you are in the last time slot then their heads fall off and they have been shaken up by the other competitors earlier in the day.

Well, I think that pictures sometimes don't suffice, because the best/common insect pictures probably have been seen by a competitor before, and it seems that live specimens see more authentic. However, I didn't know that live bugs would be that terrible. Would maybe preserved specimens work better?

[ptkid]

The only tournament that had live macros that I went to was Nationals. All the other tournaments had pictures to identify them. Live macros are HORRIBLE as well because if you are in the last time slot then their heads fall off and they have been shaken up by the other competitors earlier in the day.

Well, I think that pictures sometimes don't suffice, because the best/common insect pictures probably have been seen by a competitor before, and it seems that live specimens see more authentic. However, I didn't know that live bugs would be that terrible. Would maybe preserved specimens work better?

live bugs? you want them to be alive and flying and walking around and everything. I'd say thats nearly impossible to get. At nationals for division b we got preserved bugs which are pretty easy to ID.

[fozendog]

The only tournament that had live macros that I went to was Nationals. All the other tournaments had pictures to identify them. Live macros are HORRIBLE as well because if you are in the last time slot then their heads fall off and they have been shaken up by the other competitors earlier in the day.

Well, I think that pictures sometimes don't suffice, because the best/common insect pictures probably have been seen by a competitor before, and it seems that live specimens see more authentic. However, I didn't know that live bugs would be that terrible. Would maybe preserved specimens work better?

live bugs? you want them to be alive and flying and walking around and everything. I'd say thats nearly impossible to get. At nationals for division b we got preserved bugs which are pretty easy to ID.

Sorry I didn't mean actual LIVE macros. I meant real, DEAD macros instead of pictures. For C it was hard to identify, at least for our team, because they had been used all day by other people.

[mintyfrash]

Personally I loved having the actual specimens at nationals, even though we had the last time slot and many of them were disfigured by then. What I didn't like was having those cloudy plastic pill thingies that obscured the macros and made it really hard to even see them, much less identify them. For the salinometer testing, the saltwater at regionals was in a huge tank and everyone was given their own sample, which is the method I liked the best because I feel like sharing the water just introduces a lot of impurities into it from previous teams (e.g. the salt from their clay dissolving into it) which makes it difficult to be accurate.

[fozendog]

Oh yea those pill things were bad! When we went to ours the girl before us didn't put two back in their labeled container (1, 2, 3, etc.) so we had to guess which one was which.

[fanjiatian]

Next year's Water Quality event involves Freshwater estuaries.
What do you suppose that means? Lakes?

[silentsage]

Next year's Water Quality event involves Freshwater estuaries.
What do you suppose that means? Lakes?

An Estuary is any point at which a body of freshwater (usually a stream) meets saltwater (usually an ocean) at a coastal location. Naming it "Freshwater Estuaries" is a little redundant, but this actually had a small importance in the event last year, as the topic may have popped up once or twice in the tests I took. This may have some to do with lakes (that was mostly just DP last year), but I expect that this will have to do with ecology (yay!), different estuaries, specific species, and the effects of humans on estuarine environments.

[Fossil Freak 25]

So will we have to study things like juvenile salmon and what role estuaries play in the travel of anadromous fish, or more just the basics?