West Islip Science Students Collect Connetquot Ecological Data

WEST ISLIP, NY - Science-minded students enrolled in West Islip High School’s biotechnology, Introduction to Research, and International Baccalaureate biology, chemistry and environmental systems and societies classes recently participated in the “A Day in the Life of a River” citizen science program, collecting data on all of the rivers and estuaries on Long Island.

The program tracks the health of the aquatic systems and reports the data to various ecological institutions including Brookhaven National Laboratory, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Suffolk County Water Authority.

During the field trip, the students collected physical, environmental, biological and chemical data at the mouth of the Connetquot River at Heckscher State Park, working with experts from the DEC, Long Island Parks Department and South Shore Estuary Reserve to construct an overall snapshot of the health of the river system.

Their data will be uploaded and added to a large database of previous years’ data, allowing scientists to track overall trends in the river systems.

Photos courtesy of the West Islip School District