River Field Studies Network

Bioassessment is an evaluation of the biological condition of a waterbody using biological surveys and other direct measurements of resident living organisms. Aquatic macroinvertebrates are important indicators of stream health: they are relatively long-lived, differentially sensitive to environmental stressors, and relatively easy to sample. This lesson is a hands-on introduction to the use of stream macroinvertebrates in assessing a stream’s biological condition. Students will learn how to (1) sample and identify stream macroinvertebrates and (2) conduct a rapid bioassessment to quantify ecosystem integrity based on the macroinvertebrate taxa that they collect. The lesson can be conducted with any number of students (although a second instructor would likely be needed for class sizes >20) and is appropriate for undergraduates of all levels.

This lesson introduces students to field methods and theoretical concepts regarding the factors that shape river environments and ecosystems. Introductory material is followed by instruction in the Wolman Pebble Count and the Equation of Entrainment.

Students will investigate their relationships to water through STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) using a combination of science, art, and reflection and build new scientific skills to evaluate water quality and what is influencing it. Background information includes readings and classroom lectures about the water cycle, water systems, and point and nonpoint sources of pollution. Students will explore their connection to the different parts of the water cycle and local water systems using photography (i.e., the Photovoice method). Students will work in the field to examine maps and explore their surroundings to identify potential sources of point and nonpoint pollution. Students will use water quality tests to measure turbidity, nitrate, phosphate, and pH. Students will then reflect on their personal relationships with water, local maps, water quality results, and field experience to answer questions related to the water systems around them. The goal of this activity is to help students become familiarized with water systems, human influences on those systems, field analyses of water quality, and their personal relationships and influences on water.

In this lesson students embark upon a journey through the many ways we come to know a watershed, with foci on its physical geography and our embodied perceptions. This enables students to formulate a holistic understanding of the value of watersheds, situating any future discipline-specific foci within a broad understanding of what watersheds mean to humanity. Required site conditions are simply the bank of any river or stream channel. Equipment needs are minimal. Written data is collected in notebooks. The “data” will address questions of geography and philosophy, such as “what are the physical components of a watershed?” and “what are the roles of humanity in regard to rivers?” This lesson has broad applicability across different regions. It complements quantitative scientific river-based field lessons by actively grounding students’ understanding of humanity’s inherent subjectivity in their perceptions of rivers. The intent of this lesson is to engage with subjectivity, connecting students with the riverine place they are in through an exploration of their perceptions and feelings, ultimately deepening their relationships with rivers and places.

Identifying the habitat selection patterns of aquatic species is necessary for protecting threatened and endangered native fishes, as well as for producing satisfying and exciting sport fisheries. This field lesson combines fish observation with habitat data collection to evaluate fish habitat selection. The lesson can be tailored to suit undergraduate- and graduate-level students in biology or ecology programs. First, students will identify fish and document fish locations via snorkeling. Students will then collect habitat data from points used by and available to fish using the appropriate equipment. Depending on the size of the river, the number of instructors, and the amount of equipment available, this lesson is recommended for 4-20 students. Students will be asked to reflect on their observations and form a hypothesis about what habitat characteristics fish are selecting. Finally, as an optional assignment, students will use statistical models to determine important habitat characteristics based on collected or supplied data. Recommended duration for the field activity is 2 class sessions (one for Preparatory Material and one for Lab Assignment) and a 5–8-hour field lesson.

Logjams are important hydrologic features that shape stream channel morphology and create habitat for organisms. In this lesson, students learn about and measure logjams in a wadeable stream and predict how logjams affect macroinvertebrate communities. This lesson is geared toward undergraduates, and we recommend conducting field activities in groups of 3-5. We also recommend using a wadeable stream that contains both an area with a logjam and, some distance away (10-100m), an area without a logjam for comparison purposes. Necessary equipment includes writing supplies (paper, pencils), tape measure, datasheets, and macroinvertebrate identification (ID) keys with functional feeding group information. Students will begin the lesson by examining the riverscape, identifying channel morphology changes and major habitats in the stream, and discussing how these are influenced by logjams. Students will then examine macroinvertebrate ID keys and make a prediction about the functional feeding groups they will find in the different habitat zones. After this lesson, students will be able to identify how logjams influence channel morphology and predict how they affect macroinvertebrate habitat.

Streamflow, the amount of water flowing in a creek, stream, or river at a certain point in time, is critical to people and the environment. Knowing the amount of flowing water is important for numerous water resources, ecological, and engineering applications including flood forecasting, ecosystem health, environmental flows assessment, infrastructure design, and water supply management used for drinking water, electricity production, manufacturing, and irrigation. In this lesson, students will learn how to measure and calculate streamflow in the field using the velocity-area method.

The purpose of this experiential lesson is to introduce students to key concepts in water governance in the United States, and provide them with the opportunity to reflect on the western and Indigenous understandings of water governance in a field setting. Part I will introduce students to foundational water rights structures such as First in Time, First in Right (The Doctrine of Prior Appropriation), Winters Rights, Time Immemorial, and riparian rights, along with collaborative and adaptive water management. In Part II, students will spend time in a watershed. There, students will be asked to observe and reflect on water governance, time immemorial, and human connection to water. Upon completing this lesson, students will be able to utilize field-based journaling techniques for qualitative observations of landscapes. Additionally, students will be able to commit to more effective stewardship and allyship for the long term.

Riverbirds are widespread, use diverse riparian habitats, and respond rapidly to changing conditions. Students can apply riverbird data to evaluate hypotheses about these responses, while gaining research experience, working collaboratively in teams, and contributing data to monitoring programs. In this project, students determine distributions and habitat use of birds associated with rivers. The module can be done by students in high school through graduate school, with applications ranging from simple comparisons of species count data to advanced analysis of habitat selection. Students collect data on birds and habitats while traveling downriver in boats. After collecting data, students compare habitats used by each species relative to habitats available by estimating resource selection functions with logistic regression in R. Results can be used to compare abundances and habitat use among species, river reaches, river management regimes. The module can be implemented on multiple river reaches and along diverse rivers to facilitate comparisons or synthesis across river basis. Module results can be applied to evaluate restoration or riparian management programs.

Flowing surface waters continue to capture the human imagination and are increasingly harnessed by many interdependent human activities. Existing theories for studying rivers as cohesive ecological systems, such as the river continuum concept, have struggled to integrate human activities into ecological science. This has not been due to a lack of trying. This lesson attempts to provide a capstone or reflective field lesson for students to address river issues understood through interdisciplinary methods.

The purpose of this experiential lesson is to teach introductory to mid-level undergraduate students how to make detailed hydrologic field observations into a conceptual model using a painting medium. Students should have prior knowledge about the hydrologic cycle and the hydrologic budget. Part I is the field component where students make detailed observations about key processes of the hydrologic cycle near a river while canoeing, kayaking, or hiking. Part II is an outdoor art-lab lesson where students explore the intersection of science and art, are introduced to conceptual models, and take their observations and sketches from Part I and create a painting to explore one of five key hydrologic cycle processes. Part III is a post-lesson written assignment for students to reflect on their experience demonstrating their knowledge about the hydrologic cycle in relation to the local hydrology. Equipment needed include a field notebook, paints, a canvas, and handouts. This lesson would be well-suited to an introductory earth science, hydrology, or hydrogeology course and can be helpful when introducing the concept of scientific models.

Stream reach metabolism integrates organism respiration & production to provide a valuable ecosystem measure that varies as a function of biotic & abiotic factors. As a powerful indicator of whole system functioning, it is important students can estimate stream metabolism. This field lesson engages students in study of ecosystem metabolism through its components, production & respiration. Students connect to the reach through guided reflection, predict and explore dissolved oxygen, investigate metabolism drivers in a matching game of diel oxygen curves from streams around the world, and collect & analyze diel dissolved oxygen data. This is designed for mid to upper-level undergraduates to complete in one 2-hour field visit at a wadable reach of run habitat, and a 30-minute analysis session. This lesson complements lessons including hydrogeomorphology, field sketching, organismal studies, ecosystem energetics, mapping, any that provide an ecosystem or energetic framework (RCC, Fluvial Landscape Ecology) to student understanding of flowing waters. Additionally, it can be replicated in space and time to highlight the relative importance of the key drivers of ecosystem metabolism.

Scientists have discovered that microplastic pollution is ubiquitous in the environment, but the small size of these microscopic pollutants prohibits most people from recognizing their prevalence. This river-based field lesson will introduce environmental science students to this emerging environmental concern, and encourages them to explore microplastics in their local waterways with sample collection, density separation and field-based microscopy. Students will appreciate the opportunity to connect to this topic from anywhere in the world, allowing them to see microplastics with their own eyes and without the use of sophisticated equipment. In addition, this lesson helps students recognize their own personal impact on microplastic pollution and identify ways to reduce their creation of microplastics.

In this lesson, students are introduced to the idea and practice of “remote sensing” and provided with hands-on, field-based experience using standardized stream habitat assessment protocols (the National Rivers and Streams Assessment [NRSA]), publically available spatial data, and GPS/GIS technology and workflows to develop multi-scale scale profiles of the physical habitat characteristics of a small portion a selected watershed (the exercise can be adapted to focus on any watershed for which high resolution air photos are available). Students will work individually or as a team (e.g. in pairs) to use a Survey123 App adapted from the NRSA protocol for assessing the habitat and physical characteristics – particularly those that have been influenced by human activity – of the riparian area of a stream or river. This lesson requires the instructor to have access to an ArcGIS Online (AGOL) Creator or Editor account and for students to have access to mobile devices with the Survey123 App installed (which will require students to have an AGOL account). A Survey123 App designed for this lesson that can be adapted to suit the instructor’s needs is included in xml format.

Groundwater contributions are overlooked in many habitat assessments, even though their ecological and water quality importance to streams has been broadly recognized. This lab encourages students to engage with a stream reach, consider how groundwater contributes to the study reach, and use methods to identify groundwater connectivity. We build on the concepts of EPA habitat assessment (Chapter 5) and ask students how human activities across the landscape may influence these stream ecosystems to explore policy improvements and additional considerations.

Sketching is a powerful tool to capture observations about the landscape and preserve a picture of a field site at a particular time. At the same time, our perspectives, be they disciplinary, personal, or literally where we are standing when making observations, color the way that we see things. This lesson asks students to make sketches of a field site over progressively shorter windows of time (10 minutes, 4 minutes, 1 minute) before and after conducting geomorphic data collection at the site. The expected outcome is that students will see and focus on different aspects of the landscape after collecting data, helping them to see the way that disciplinary learning informs their perspective. The activity also encourages them to consider their sketches as data rather than focusing on artistic ability. Students will also build skills in hypothesis generation and field data collection, as they collect basic geomorphic data that can be used in an assessment for this individual lesson or in subsequent lessons.

This two-part field lesson for mid- to upper-level undergraduates connects allochthonous inputs to the invertebrate consumers that depend on them. After preparing students with background information such as the stream continuum concept, ‘brown’ versus ‘green’ food web components, and invertebrate functional feeding groups, students will be ready to embark into the stream. During the first part, students will sample organic matter using a variety of equipment, sort the organic matter into leaf packs, and deploy the leaf packs. During the second part, students will collect the leaf packs, inventory the inhabiting aquatic macroinvertebrates, and identify functional feeding groups present. Students will reflect on their experience by drawing a diagram of a detritus-based food web, writing a paragraph explaining the food web, and making comparisons of their data to data from other locations in the activity worksheet.

Students investigate questions of community ecology and biogeography using data from an urban rock pool ecosystem. Using ArcGIS 10, students learn to create effective maps, calculate landscape attributes, and perform introductory spatial analysis.

Adaptation of the "Investigating human impacts on stream ecology: Scaling up from Local to National with a focus on the Southeast" specifically to focus on self-paced R code instruction

Students use data on nitrogen and phosphorus levels in streams and macrobenthic insect biodiversity to consider issues of nutrient pollution and stream health while learning to filter, summarize, and plot data.

Adaptation of the "TIEE Module- How does nutrient pollution impact stream ecosystems locally and nationally?" specifically to include information on the SE (particularly Atlanta, GA).

Modification of the Investigating Human Impacts on Stream Ecology Module to emphasize landscape indicators and incorporate inclusive practices.

This multi-part module aims to help you learn about water quality implications by understanding the variability of concentrations of nitrate in stream water through the evaluation of real-time data and identifying the reasons for this variability.

In this module, students use data from the United States Geologic Survey to assess changes in stream discharge with time, calculate flood frequency, and see the effects of urbanization and flood control.

Stream discharge is a fundamental measure of water supply in stream systems. Low discharge may cause problems with water supply and fish passage, while high discharge may mean flooding. In this module, students explore real-time stream discharge...

This lesson focuses on understanding metadata, the data about the data, using aquatic macroinvertebrate abundance and species information from a variety of NEON sampling locations.

This learning module was designed to introduce students to the aquatic nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus, their roles in ecosystem function and nutrient pollution, and what impacts climate change might have on their presence and effects in aquatic systems

This lesson focuses on ways that scientists identify and use data to understand ecological disturbance events using data from five public datasets. The main lesson focused on interpretation of figures, while optional coding extensions teach R skills.

TIEE Module- How does nutrient pollution impact stream ecosystems locally and nationally?

Students learn about stream ecology on the island of Hawaii using data available through USGS and University of Hawaii websites and develop an understanding for potential stream changes due to predicted climate change.

This resource uses the Human Impact on Stream Ecology data set, background and questions and provides students an very general introduction to using R. Students perform basic summary statistics and data visualization in R (using tidyr language).

TIEE Module- How does nutrient pollution impact stream ecosystems locally and nationally?

The MathBench module, "The Case of the Missing Mountaintop" introduces students to the concept of biodiversity and measures used to quantify biodiversity and stream health. Students investigate the impacts of mountaintop removal mining processes on stream

This module uses R software to introduce students to the process of accessing databases and building species distribution models based on occurrence records.

Use a well-resolved food web database from a freshwater wetland ecosystem in central California to explore how parasites influence community properties and learn how food webs are constructed and analyzed.

Students utilize the provided dataset to engage in an open-inquiry project on the impacts of abiotic and biotic factors on stream macroinvertebrate communities and/or leaf litter decomposition.

This module provides a framework for upper-level ecology students to learn about limiting factors for stream fish diversity, using data from Shenandoah National Park and gaining skills in predictive, regression-based modeling.

This module enables students to identify the freshwater components of the hydrologic cycle and connect them to the basic need of all human beings for equal access to clean freshwater.