Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
NIK MAKI, left, and Josh Hegbloom unload fish from a net into a tub as part of an experiment Tuesday to estimate the fish population in the Bluff Valley Park Pond.
By TOM STANKARD
Bessemer - David Rowe wanted to make math and science "fun."
As a "real life" biology experiment, Rowe, a biology teacher at A.D. Johnston High School, said he wanted to estimate the population of fish in the pond at Bluff Valley Park.
Rowe said the experiment resulted from years of collaboration with Roger Greil, Lake Superior State University aquatic research laboratory manager.
On Monday morning, Rowe and his biology class began the experiment by taking a sample of the population of fish.
Using a fishing boat and nets, a crew of students caught fish, clipped the fins to "mark" them, and threw the fish back in the water, as part of the "capture, re-capture" sampling method. While on the boat, the crew set up nets to re-capture the fish.
The next morning, a group of students and Michigan Department of Natural Resources Supervisor Mark Mylchreest gathered the fish in the nets and put them in a large container.
Back on land, students collected the data. Rowe said they recorded how many fish were marked and how many were unmarked. The numbers are then plugged into a mathematical formula to come up with an estimate of the population in the pond.
On top of estimating the population, Rowe said the students evaluated how blue gills put in earlier this year survived during the summer and evaluated the habitat quality.
Currently, the class is analyzing the data and will present their findings to the Bessemer City Council in the future.
Mylchreest said the project taught students science and mathematics skills and exposed them to the "real world."
Rowe said the project teaches students skills that they can't get in the classroom or reading text books.
"Projects like this reap great benefits," he said. "When you work with professionals who do this everyday, they can add a new element to the classroom that I can't do."
Tim Rowe, a sophomore, said he had fun working on the project.
"We learned about fish in a fun way," he said. "Who doesn't like learning about fish? We got to learn about science and probably do math, but we're not going to think about doing homework, even though we are."
Greil, a Bessemer native, said the project could inspire the community to make the body of water a fishing pond.
"I think it could be good resource for the kids," he said.
