Monday, June 16 - 2008

A daily journal of the events taking place during the Sturgen City programs for 2008.

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SI Day in the Pond
By: Carole Kreider

Day One: Science Institute
Groups: Moon and Earth
Tour Guide: JP McCann

Moon and Earth began the day with a story of Sturgeon City, and what the area had been when it was a wastewater facility. JP McCann described the different areas of Sturgeon City, mainly discussing what had been the major cause of the want for change.

After the tiny history lesson, the tour continued to the Aquaculture Program building. Here, the students learned about why flounder were bred here and what applied research was. They were able to look inside the tanks that held the flounder. A whirlpool system is used to keep the water circulating, allowing the fish to be able to have new water every so often.

The traditional tour of the Bio Tower came next. The students learned what bio balls were – black balls that would filter out unwanted waste. The facility would dump the black balls into the bio tower, and then sprayed water on them so they would be able to filter out the waste that was coming in. The students discovered that the filtering process was not successful, and the tower was abandoned.

Once the tour was completed, the Moon Group separated to do a few activities. This is known as Team Building. Their first activity was to toss a ball around as fast as they could, in the same order each time – without dropping the ball. They had to remember everyone’s names. Once a ball was dropped, they had to restart the whole process. The goal of this activity was to get as many balls – a total of four – out into the group and continue the process for as long as they could. Moon tried three balls, but only having two out were successful.

The next activity involved a trash bag. The goal was to not touch the ground while flipping the bag. You were not able to use your hands, but you could hop onto something that wasn’t touching the ground (such as a fence). The same group won both times, even though the group that used the fence worked just as hard to win. Their other activity was to be able to form a “human knot,” a link of their arms, and try to untangle it while ending up facing the outside of the circle. The final activity was sitting on one another’s lap in a circle – allowing their weight to be level.

The final adventure for the day was to head to the Lily Pond. Here, the Moon Group studied the environment of such an area, taking samples of the water and focusing on the type of life that lived inside of the Lily Pond. Students were told that cattails were an edible plant – from the root all the way to the brown tip. Of course, none of the students seemed willing to do such a thing. Taking their time, the Moon Group took their samples and began to discover what pH and salinity were.


After a long day in the sun, the Moon Group began their journey back to New Bridge Middle School. Ready for lunch, it seemed they were beginning to get tired, but you never know when a new excitement would arrive.

 

Interviews

Name: JoAnn Hopkins

Grade: Ninth
School: White Oak High School
Institute: Science Institute
Group: Moon

Is Sturgeon City familiar to you?
This is my first time.

What are you most excited about?
Getting wet, dirty, and hot.

Name: Matt

What is this building about?
This is the Aquaculture Program that is run by University of North Carolina – Wilmington. Here we grow flounder, trying to see how well we can farm them.

Why are flounder grown in here?
We want to be able to teach others so they can learn how to grow fish, and in turn teach others to widen the variety and chance of giving food to countries.

What other types of fish are grown here?
We’re trying to get Black Sea Bass, but we need salt water to allow the fish to thrive. They are very apt to salt water.

 

Did You Know???
by Symone’ Whitfield

Did you know that it is illegal to possess any species of Sturgeon in North Carolina?

Did you know that the Shortnose Sturgeon is protected under the Federal Endangered Species Act?

Did you know that the Atlantic Sturgeon is valued its meat, caviar, and sport?

Did you know that up until March 1988 the city used Wilson Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant to handle wastewater needs?

 

 

 

 

 

History with Spunk!
By: Ashley Thomas, Symone’ Whitfield

Oysters, oysters…and more oysters was the main topic discussed with the SLDI the first day of Sturgeon City. Lisa Whitman-Grice presented the history of Jacksonville more specifically the development of Wilson Bay. She engaged the SLDI to “be history” for a moment and act out the “big battle” which took place between Lt. Commander Cushing (Patrick Lynch, a sophomore from Jacksonville High) who had “great potential and the oysters of Wilson Bay. Patrick’s account of the battle consisted of him exclaiming “how the oysters won!”, even though Lt. Commander Cushing was looked at as a hero.

Onlookers had a say about Wilson Bay as well. Layne Asher, a sophomore from Northside High was overcome with enthusiasm exclaiming how large the oysters really were, “they are so huge; I can’t believe how big they actually are!” The oysters actually won the battle of New River. Hannah Law, a sophomore from Jacksonville High gained “a better understanding of the history of Jacksonville.” She was so excited that she “was able to learn about my home city, and the events that helped shape it.”

The SLDI learned a plethora of information from having the hands on experience of actually reenacting the battle of The New River. For instance, did you know that the oysters of Wilson Bay have been treasured immensely over the years? The oysters are actually the real workers of the bay. Oysters travel along the bottom of the bay, cleaning up waste that was discarded in the bay throughout the years. Wilson Bay has now been a long time project that has spurred attention to the community of Jacksonville. The SLDI were fortunate enough to be witnesses and active participants of learning the history of Wilson Bay.

 

More Oxygen Please!
By: Lauren Boatman

The Wilson Bay Initiative doesn’t mean much to most, but to Tami Odum and many others in city hall, it means 10 years of hard work. For many years the city of Jacksonville was dumping all of its sewage into Wilson Bay. Ten years ago the fecal count was 67,000 colonies per 100 ml of water. Many people within the community wanted something done about the smell. It was obvious that change was a necessity, not an option. Ten years ago the oxygen level of Wilson Bay was 0%; nothing could possibly live in it.

After searching for a way to bring life back to Wilson Bay, oysters seemed like a good solution. By putting 4 million oysters into the bay, they filtered 40 million gallons of water per day. Even after adding oysters to the bay, water specialists still felt like there was more that could be done to add oxygen to the water. Soon the City of Jacksonville put three aeration units into Wilson Bay. The aeration units take water from the bottom of the water column and put oxygen into it, then they shoot the oxygenated water back down to the bottom.

After all of the hard work that was put into Sturgeon City, now there’s a place where people can go and appreciate the environment. In the near future there will be an Environmental Education Center built within Sturgeon City where all of this will happen.

The Story of the Old and New Wilson Bay
By: Katherine Williams

The Student Leadership Development group spent Monday morning learning the story of the Sturgeon and Wilson Bay. The students from the Young Leaders Institute presented this information. A slide show was prepared, but electronic malfunctions prevented it from being shown. The Young Leaders explained that the bay was the place waste was discharged from surrounding areas for a number of years. When the community became more aware of this, many things were done to try to fix the problem.

Unfortunately most of these attempts failed. The Young Leaders gave the tour of the former Wastewater Treatment Plant site. The Secondary Clarifier was the beginning of the tour. Each of these tanks holds 340,000 gallons of water and is 12 feet deep. Here they learned about the attempt to separate the sludge from the wastewater, to produce cleaner water. These tanks were not being used by 1998.

Next the group traveled up the three flights of stairs to the 30 feet high BioTower. Their guides explained that the large Reactor was filled, from the bottom up, with BioBalls would filter the water. The water was sprayed into the Tower, and filtered through, only leaving clean water. The bacteria living on the BioBalls would eat the waste matter. Sand, grease, and other items caused problems. This would have produced more oxygen and get rid of more waste. Lejeune Sophomore McKenzie Hallstrom said she learned about the “wastewater treatment facility, where waste was filtered.” She also added “Don’t put grease down drains!”

By the end of the morning the Student Leadership Development Institute learned about the old and new wastewater treatment ideas.