The Middle Patuxent River at Eden Brook

Last week, I volunteered for a local high school’s assessment of river near their school – the Middle Patuxent River at the end of Eden Brook Drive. The high schools start early in our county so the volunteers were asked to be on location to set up by 7 AM (the students to arrive at 7:30). It was still pretty dark when I left my house. My role was part of the abiotic assessment – looking at the corridor of the river. The old bridge abutment was a good place to look up and down the river for the assessment. The bridge had washed away in some flood event (hurricane) years ago and not been rebuilt. I had a table for the materials the students would need.

There was fall color to each side and lots of leaves that had already fall.

I zoomed in on the crumbling abutment on the opposite side of the river.

Some of the concrete was providing nooks for leaves. The brush that might have done the same function had been lifted far above the current water level in the last flood.

To the right was a table set up to support a group of students looking for macroinvertebrates.

There was another table to the left. There would be 6 groups of students in all; three would do the macroinvertebrate search and three would do abiotic assessments. The students would rotate so that they all got an opportunity to do all the activities.

We unloaded boots for students that would working in the river....and we were ready for the students. There as a few minutes of calm.

And then the flurry of 60ish students arriving….half of them putting on boots and going to the river. Data sheets being filled out. It was 2 hours full of activity as all 6 groups fo students rotated through my activity.

The weather was near perfect…the students were exuberant…it was great day for a stream assessment. It's a suburban river - with a lot of problems associated with impervious surfaces and extra 'stuff' from lawns and roads and lots of people getting into the water....but the county had made the banks into an undeveloped park; the situation could improve for the river. I want to go back to hike in the area before all the leaves are completely off the trees – a fall foliage hike close to home.