Floating Classroom — A Thursday Afternoon Boat Ride with Mimi

Several weeks ago, Mommy came across an email that there are “floating classroom” lake trip available in the summer.  They offer hands-on science experiments to the community during a boat tour around Cayuga Lake.  Mimi’s 5th grade class also visited the trip.  Since mommy saw another one is available, she signed up both Mimi and her for a ride.

 

You can’t ask for a better weather for the boat ride.  It was beautiful — sunny but breezy.  You don’t have to worry about sun burn but at the same time, still feel the comfortable wind from the lake.

 

Mommy picked up Mimi from Janis at 3:30pm.  She packed Mimi a peanut butter and jelly sandwitch for the boat ride, but…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

This girl was so hungry and……

 

 

 

 

 

 

she finished her snack before boarding on the ride.

 

This is our ride for the next two hours.

 

 

 

 

 

We all need to remain seated when the crew was ready for boarding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are the two people in charge of the program.

 

 

 

And they also worked with a few interns helping to manage the program.

 

 

Leaving our dock.  See you back in two hours.

 

 

She was giving the audience a brief explanation of the tour and our surrounding.

 

 

We are moving away from the inland towards the center of the lake.

 

 

 

 

Does it look like the scene from Tom Sawyer in the Mississippi River?   Do you know that Mark Twain was actually from central New York?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are marching slowly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we move away from the inland, we saw a huge flock of sea birds gathering around the shore.

 

 

Now that we approach to deeper water, the captain sped up to march towards to the center of the lake.

 

 

Isn’t this a beautiful day for a boat ride?

 

 

Route 13 — the country road that will take us home…..   Our house is on the top of the hill by the road.

 

 

And you see company on the water.

 

 

The building is owned by Cornell University.  Cornell uses this facility to direct cold water from the deep end of the lake and transport the water to Cornell campus to cool some of their facilities that generate high volumn of heat.  I believe the warmer water will be later re-distributed back to the lake. 

 

 

You also see quite a few “lake properties”.  The building may seem inexpensive.  However, a private access to the lake comes with a high price tag.

 

 

Suddenyly, the captain came over to reach to the cover of the floor.  He said he needed to replace one of the three operating batteries to keep the boat going.

 

 

 

Now that we arrive the center of the lake, the crew started workingg on the first of the experiment.  They wanted to test the water clarity level.

 

 

 

 

They used the device to collect water sample.  The device can reach down to the deeper end of the lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These experiments are not too sophisticated.  Perfect for my 5th grader to operate.

 

 

Of course, it’s great to see our girl scout participated.

 

 

 

 

On the other side of the boat, another experiment is taking place.  They were collecting plants from lake water for an observation.

 

 

You could easily collect quite a few different plants.  Some are easily identified as invasive species (from Asia).

 

 

From Mimi’s experiment, they use some of the lake water they collected for a microscope observation.

 

 

 

You can easily see that the level of water clarity is not crystal clear.  There are quite a bit debries in the water.

 

 

 

They first filtered the water.

 

 

 

And deposit what was left on the filter onto microscope for a close up look.  I can’t take any photos on what I saw but all i can say is AMAZING.  You saw small micro-organism swimming under the microscope.  Their bodies were transparent.  You can see through most of their organs (you even can see fluid flowing through their body).  That was awsome.

 

 

 

Of course, my girl also took her turn looking under the microscope.

 

 

 

After that, she switched to the plant collecting experiment.

 

 

They showed the audience what they have collected.  It is easily that you find water plants with long long stem. 

 

 

 

That was the device they used to collect sample.

 

That was thrown far away so that they have a better chance to harvest their catch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are quite a few “things” you can find on the water.  Someone found a big dead fish on the water.

 

 

 

There was also a plastic bag floating on the water.  The program coordinator decided to collect that piece of trash to “clean” the water.

 

 

 

Then they continued back to their experiment.  This is when he took out the clean water.  He washed off the plant they collected.

 

 

And offer the audience for a taste sample.  Did we try one?  After seeing what I saw in the microscope, Mimi and I passed the offering.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the captain.  He also gave Mimi a brief tour of his space.

 

 

The black square box on the right side of the picture was the sonar.  That uses underwater sound waves for navigation.  They also have radar that gives out useful information to help the captain to steer the boat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They were ready for their next experiment — water temperature monitoring.

 

 

 

Bill was giving a small lesson about the correlation between the depth of the water and the temperature.  Usually, the deeper the water is, the cooler the temperature will be.

 

 

This is the device they use to collect water sample.  They need to carefully monitor the depth of the water to make sure their sample is from the right level.

 

 

Mimi was helping to un-tangle the device.

 

 

 

To collect the sample, it is at least a three-person job.

 

 

One person was letting off the string.

 

 

One person was reading the mark to monitor the depth of the water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mimi rotated to be in charge of letting go the string.

 

 

And she took that job seriously.

 

 

 

 

And she got a little spill on her clothes.

 

 

 

 

You can see that the water temperature is pretty cold.  It was marked only 8 degree celsius.

 

 

 

 

Mimi also help with Ph level testing.

 

 

She carefully extracted sample from the bottle, and deposited 5 drops into the tube.

 

 

Then added testing solution.

 

 

 

And compared the color with the kit to determine the right ph level.

 

 

I don’t remember the actual level but it is slightly on the sour side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That pretty much concluded our experiments for the day.  We were ready to head back to dock.

 

 

From here, you also see some beautiful lake properties along the shore.

 

 

 

 

When you see Cornell University, you know you are not too far away from home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We arrived the dock 5 minutes to 6pm.  It was such a great tour.

 

 

After we landed, mommy quickly took Mimi to her band group practice.  That was a LONG but rewarding day!!