AP Environmental Science students have been putting their fieldwork to good use across the school forest, river, garden, and beyond.
Between soil sampling at these three sites — now with six years of data collected — and a collaboration with National Park Service staff to gather dragonfly larvae from the Pogue at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller, students are contributing to real, long-term environmental research.
For the dragonfly project, students learned about different families like Gomphidae and Cordulidae, and how, as predators, dragonflies bioaccumulate mercury up the food chain — making their larvae useful bioindicators. Samples will be sent to a lab for mercury analysis and added to hundreds of other data points gathered nationwide over the project's 12-year history. Check out The Dragonfly Mercury Project for more information.
