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Ivan Mendoza

Mr. Pasterino

Environmental Science Honors

04 December 2018

Reflection

Throughout this Field work Experience, we volunteered with the people from Save Bay

to create runnel so the marsh would be able to flow out and not be high over flowed. After doing

this we started to pick up the micro-trash that was all around the marsh. We also found

aluminum, plastic, and styrofoam objects. We also had to dig out seeds from bundles of sticks

and dirt so the marsh would not have too many invasive species and other plants growing. While

doing this, it connects with what we are doing in our environmental science class where we

learned about the five indicators of biodiversity. These five indicators are human impact, plant

and animal communities, water quality, air quality, and biodiversity.

What we seen as for the human impact was bad. We found that there were inflatable

summer equipments in the marsh. The items were a bouncy ball, surfer board, and a floaty.

These objects were thrown here as trash items that people left. We also found aluminum, plastic,

and styrofoam objects. For aluminum objects, we found beer cans. There was an average of 13

cans found in the marsh. As for plastic objects, it was mostly plastic wraps in the mud and dirt.

Lastly for styrofoam, we found styrofoam residue left behind from what could be a foam that

protects things from getting damage. After from finding these micro-trash, we switched off to
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bigger trash. What we found for bigger trash was mainly wood. The wood that was left to

become trash in this marsh was made for a fence and wood to build pillars. These pieces were

fully rotted in which means that it was left here for a while.

For biodiversity and plant and animal communities, the marsh had a wide variety of

different species. In the plant communities, there were organisms like pickleweed, phragmites,

and spartina. There are many invasive species that are affecting plants. For example, phragmites

is an invasive species to others, which makes some plant species have a hard time taking roots

from other species to be able to grow. As for the animal communities, there were Horseshoe

Crabs, Green Crabs, Seagulls, and Fiddler Crabs. With all of these differential species comparing

both animal and plants, it is widely diversified within the marsh. How we could improve the

salinity of the marsh by making way for the marsh to retrieve fresh water to keep the salinity

stable.

Our main impact on the water was that we dug a runnel in the peat. Before we dug this

passage, water would flood the upper marsh area and have no place to flow to. When this sea

water dries up, the remaining salt causes the less tolerant plants to die off and more tolerant

plants to colonize the area. Now that the runnel is dug, water, nutrients, and sediment can flow

freely, lessening the impact of storms and other flooding. The sea cools and warms slower than

the land because heat transfers slower to water. There are high amounts of sulfur in the air

causing the air quality to suffer. The reason for the high amounts of sulfur in the air because of

decaying plant matter as well as decaying animal matter.

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This Field work Experience volunteering with the people from Save Bay to create a

runnel, so the marsh would be able to flow out and not be high over flowed, educated us more on

the health of the marsh more. For human impacts, it was bad because of the stuff we found like

inflatable summer equipments, micro-trash and building material. But, we did find a widely

spread diversity of plants and animals, even though the marsh had many invasive species

growing in. lastly for the water quality, we digged a runnel to have a flow of water to flow out.