FLIB

I was in the first Grand Haven group to go on the boat trip, and it was really fun. I enjoyed it and learned a lot. I learned how to use  some of the tools and the procedures you take to get and test the water. I wasn’t very sure what the tools looked like before the trip, and I wasn’t very sure how to use it. But then the instructors told us how to use some of the tools and what to do. I also learned that Lake Michigan (or at least the area we tested) is cleaner than I thought it was. It was considerably cleaner than Spring Lake, which is a eutrophic lake (Lake Michigan is a Mesetrophic lake). And I learned about different types of invasive species and how they got to the Great Lakes (zebra mussels and quaga mussels).

Lake Michigan was way cleaner that Spring Lake by quite a bit. Lake Michigan has less and cleaner sediment, where the sediment of Spring Lake was goopier and made up of decomposing plants. The water in Lake Michigan is clearer than Spring Lake. Spring Lake is a eutrophic lake, and Lake Michigan is a Mesetrophic lake.

My favorite academic thing on the trip was playing with the chemicals inside the boat and seeing the amount of chemicals needed to make the water clear and fun stuff like that.