Checking the Vital Signs of a Maine watershed

Sarah Morrisseau

Gulf of Maine Research Institute

THE ISSUE

SENTENCE

How healthy are your local ecosystems? Students use a variety of health indicators to investigate and assess the health of a local upland, freshwater, or coastal system.

OVERVIEW

In Checking the Vital Signs of a Maine Watershed, students are charged with investigating a research question of interest to the scientific community: Is my local ecosystem healthy? They take a firsthand look at the health of a local ecosystem, share conclusions and fresh ideas with local planners and resource managers in their communities, and report their findings more broadly to the scientific community through the Vital Signs website.

Introductory activities arm students with an understanding of the importance of healthy ecosystems and the services they provide. Teams of students then tackle their research question. They choose which health parameters they are most interested in investigating. Choices include biodiversity studies, native & invasive species surveys, land use & human impact surveys, water chemistry analysis, and biological assessments. Investigation results from all teams are pooled and students decide whether or not they can collectively answer their research question. Based on the information and evidence they gather, students take action. They develop management plans to maintain and/or improve the health of their study site, and share them publicly online in the Vital Signs Project Bank, and locally with city planners and natural resource managers.

LIST OF ACTIVITIES IN THIS UNIT OF STUDY

  1. A picture of health: Human health continuum
  2. A picture of health: Ecosystem health continuum
  3. Healthy matters
  4. Vital Signs fieldwork skills
  5. Self-organize around your interests
  6. Sampling Methods:
  • Biodiversity count
  • Native and invasive species survey
  • Water quality: chemical analysis
  • Water quality: biological assessment
  • Land use and human impact checklist
  1. Quality check & peer review
  2. Ecosystem health analysis
  3. Make public service announcements!

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Humans and all other species rely on healthy ecosystems to meet their individual and collective needs. In Maine and across the planet, human activities and the changes humans make to the environment can have an impact on the overall health of freshwater, coastal, and upland ecosystems.

BACKGROUND ON ECOSYSTEM HEALTH

We are a keystone species ready and able to change natural environments – both intentionally and unintentionally – to meet our needs. The changes we make to our environment, both big and small, influence how well ecosystems function and the quality of resources and services they provide.

It is difficult (and even controversial) to define what a “healthy” ecosystem is or looks like, but the scientific community fundamentally agrees that healthy systems have nutrient and water cycling that sustain life, patterns of succession, and wildlife population cycles. They are able to recover readily from a range of natural and human-caused disturbances, and provide services to living things, including erosion control, soil fertility, and clean water.

Scientists use various criteria to determine whether an ecosystem is healthy or not. These criteria include:

  • Biodiversity (diversity of plant and animal communities in a defined area)
  • Presence of invasive species
  • Plant health (signs of insect damage, disease)
  • Animal health (births and deaths, disease)
  • Soil health (erosion, compaction, chemical composition)
  • Recent natural or human-caused disturbance
  • Nutrient cycling
  • Water cycling
  • Polluting activities nearby (roads, factories, trash, storm drains, septic tanks, lawns, road sand and salt)
  • Water quality (color, smell, chemical composition)
  • Air quality
  • Distance from roads and urban areas
  • Human population density

Mainers and every species in Maine and across the planet rely on healthy ecosystems to ensure quality of life, reproduction, and survival. The changes we make to and near freshwater, coastal, and upland ecosystems have an impact on their current and future health.

Our human population continues to grow and demand more of our environment. The US Census reports that from 1960-2000 Maine’s population has steadily increased Between 2000 and 2010, Maine population continued to follow this trend, increasing statewide by 4.2% ( In the face of such steady population growth and increased ecosystem stress, Mainers can play a key role in identifying, maintaining, and revitalizing ecosystem health.

INTRODUCTION

Through discussion, journaling, and hands-on activities, students build their own understanding of ecosystem health. Activities draw parallels between familiar human vital signs and less familiar measures and indicators of ecosystem health. Students discover for themselves why it is important for humans and other species to live in healthy ecosystems.

What does it mean to be healthy? Can you determine healthiness just by looking?

Use A Picture of Health: Human Health Continuum to get students thinking about what it means to be healthy. Before they tackle ecosystem health, students consider human health – a topic more familiar that they all have personal experience with.

Students do a similar health analysis using photographs of ecosystems that show a wide range of health. The A Picture of Health: Ecosystem Health Continuum gets students thinking about their own assessment criteria for determining ecosystem health. They look at a series of photographs of ecosystems that show a range of health, and arrange them along a continuum from healthy to unhealthy. News articles, videos, and online resources introduce students to other measures of ecosystem health and help them refine their thinking and evidence about what it means to be healthy.

Who cares about ecosystem health?

In Healthy Matters students keep a journal of everything they do and use for one full day from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed. By matching what they do and use to an ecosystem service, students learn firsthand how their own lives depend on healthy, productive ecosystems. Students transfer what they learned to another species that lives in their watershed, imagining and journaling about how that species might rely on healthy ecosystem services too.

INVESTIGATE

How do scientists measure an ecosystem’s “vital signs?”

Doctors and nurses routinely check “vital signs” (temperature, pulse, blood pressure, breathing, etc.) to get a sense of a person’s health. Similarly, scientists use tools to check an ecosystem’s “vital signs” and assess health. Students practice the Vital Signs Fieldwork Skills that will ultimately help them collect high quality data to determine the health of their own local ecosystem: species identification, photography, supporting claims with evidence, and field methods.

**Note: Students practice all of the skills, and then break into teams to do their research using the Self Organize activity described below.

Is my ecosystem healthy?

Students select a study site where they will investigate their research question: Is my ecosystem healthy? Each team uses a different scientific tool or method to investigate one of four different “vital signs.” They later pool their data to get a more complete assessment of health based on these characteristics.

  1. Biodiversity A healthy ecosystem doesn’t just have a lot of species, it has a lot of different species. Biodiversity is one of the best indicators of ecosystem health. A diversity of species contributes to long-term productivity, sustainability, and resilience.
  1. Invasive species Invasive species are a growing threat to Maine’s biodiversity of native species and overall habitat health. Without predators to keep their populations in check, invasive species are able to out-compete native species for food, shelter, and space, thus upsetting natural ecosystem balance.
  1. Water quality The physical properties of water dictate which species can and cannot live there, and whether humans can or cannot use it for a variety of purposes from drinking to agriculture to recreation.
  1. Land use/ management How people decide to use and change ecosystems to meet their needs impacts health. The changes we make to land include replacing native communities with agriculture, altering water and chemical cycles, and creating urban areas. Monitoring and managing these changes is an important step in maintaining or restoring ecosystem health.

Students Self-Organizearound their intereststo figure out which of the four “vital signs” they are most interested in exploring and trying to measure. Self-organization and choice are two powerful motivational tools that get students excited and invested in their work.

IN THE FIELD

Before they start their fieldwork in an upland, freshwater, or coastal ecosystem, students take 5 minutes to observe their surroundings with their ecosystem health research question in mind. In teams, they come up with predictions based on what they see. They can make either a high level prediction about the whole ecosystem, or a more specific prediction about the “vital sign” their team is observing or measuring. Examples:

High level: “We think this ecosystem is healthy/ unhealthy because….”

Specific: “We think the water quality will be good/ bad here because….”

Each team uses one of the following sampling methods to make measurements and observations. Teams compile their data on one Vital Signs Species & Habitat Survey datasheet.

  1. Biodiversity count (all ecosystems)
  1. Native and invasive species survey (all ecosystems)
  1. Water quality: Chemical analyses (pH, dissolved oxygen, temperature, salinity)

Water quality: Biological assessment (macroinvertebrates)

(water ecosystems only)

  1. Land use & human impact checklist (all ecosystems)

IN THE CLASSROOM

Students compile the data collected by each team into a single datasheet. They enter the data they collected on the Vital Signs website, using tutorials to guide data entry:

  • How teachers set up investigations for their students
  • How students collect data and put it on the website
  • Aah! I lost my data. Nope, no you didn’t.

Before publishing their data to the Vital Signs database and sharing it with the scientific community, teams do a Quality Check and Peer Review to ensure it is complete, accurate, and well-supported.

Once the data are published online, the Vital Signs community of scientists, peers, and citizens will review it, use it, and engage in conversation about it!

ORGANIZE, ANALYZE, & MAKE MEANING OF DATA

What do our data mean for this ecosystem? What do our data mean for our watershed?

Students work in their small investigation teams to analyze and make meaning of the data they collected. Ecosystem Health Analyses helps students organize and analyze data from each of the different sampling methods: biodiversity counts, native & invasive species surveys, water quality chemical analyses and biological assessments, and land use and human impact assessments.

Based on the evidence they collected, teams decide separately whether or not they think their initial prediction about ecosystem health is correct or not. Teams present their findings to one another. A final evidence-based discussion challenges them to collectively answer their research question based on every team’s findings.

Students use a watershed map to think about their findings in context of the larger watershed. What do their findings mean to the ecosystems and communities connected to their own? What questions would they ask people from other areas of the watershed? What investigations would they like to do and where?

STUDENT ACTION

Based on your investigation, what ideas do you have about how to sustain or improve the health of the area you studied? How would you balance human and environmental needs? What do you think your community should do?

Based on what they discovered about the health of their local ecosystem, students create Public Service Announcements to raise awareness, change behavior, or motivate action. Students share their PSAs virtually with the Vital Signs community by adding it to the Project Bank. Students receive online feedback on their plan from other students, teachers, citizens, and scientists in the Vital Signs community.

Students convene an in-person meeting with community stakeholders and city planners to share and celebrate (!) their PSAs. Together students and community members decide which PSAs could be shared with the larger community and what further actions might be taken. See for additional action examples!

Students may also want to show off their PSAs to their peers during a school assembly or movie night.