North Bend Elementary School
Community Mapping Project
Home Wet Stone Branch Rocks State Park Walter's Mill
In the fall of 2006, 14 fourth and fifth grade students at North Bend Elementary school decided to learn about GIS and GPS. We got together and worked for several weeks preparing a slide show. We wanted to learn about GIS and GPS and explain it to other people in the school. We presented our slide show to all fourth and fifth grade students at our school. We did our presentation on the 2006 GIS Day. Everyone was really interested in the subject, and our group decided to go on to study and use GIS and GPS units for the rest of the year.
We live in Harford County, Maryland, United State of America.
We live in Harford County, Maryland, which is at the top of the Chesapeake Bay. The eastern boundary of Harford County is the Susquehanna River. We have a small tributary behind our school called Wet Stone Branch. We started our work there with a stream study. Miss Amanda Koss of Harford Glen helped us with our study and taught us a lot about ecology and the environment. Ellen Lovelidge, a fisheries specialist, also assisted our group. We discussed erosion and how it affects the Chesapeake Bay. We used a Virginia guide to rating our stream, gathered invertebrates, and took water samples.
Map of the route of our field trip, Harford County, Maryland.
The GIS group at North Bend then became interested in learning about the path our water in Wet Stone Branch took to get to the ocean. We took a field trip on December 13, 2007 to follow Wet Stone Branch, which is in our school's backyard, to Deer Creek, to the Susquehanna River, and finally, to the Chesapeake Bay. The bay empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Our route took us from the school, to Rocks State Park, to Walter's Mill, then to the Big Inch near the Susquehanna River, and finally to Havre de Grace where we went to the Lock House and Tydings Park. At each stop, the group took the air temperature, the water temperature, the flow rate, and we collected two water samples. Each person was assigned a group and a job. We rotated the smaller groups so that everyone got a chance at each job. This web site tells about our field trip and each place we visited on December 13.
Fifth Grade members of our group: Christine P., Carly M., Brenden H., Andrew S., Becky B., Danielle H., Cassidy M., and Corey B.
Fourth Grade members of our group: Kelly H., Adam P., Erik D., Austin B., Sean B., and Billy H.
Advisors : Mrs. Sarah Lovelidge and Mrs. Irene Debye
Special Thanks to Miss Amanda Koss of Harford Glen and Ellen Lovelidge, Fisheries Specialist, Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission