hi i'm ranger jonathan
i'm out here in shenandoah national park
out at
white oak falls so what's actually
behind me is a tributary of the falls
and today we're going to be exploring
water
and where water comes from where it goes
so water is a great universal
you i all living things
need water and we don't just need any
water we need
clean water water that is not polluted
and so we're going to look today at this
watershed behind me and look at it
so the water that is here it's been
moving
changing through hundreds
thousands and even millions of years
and it's been changing the world around
it too
so you're probably familiar with the
water cycle
as the water moves
it changes all the water that we see
here was rain at one point
this water is doesn't come from a
spicket anywhere
it actually comes from a spring that is
solely fed by rain water
and that rain water has all fallen here
in shenandoah national park
but where that water is on a go is one
of the things we're going to look at
so let's take some time and look
specifically at the water
right here let's look at how it came
here
where it's going and why is it
specifically
right here so all of this water
is in what we term a watershed now
that's a term you might not be familiar
with
a watershed is an area of land
in which all of the water that is
in that area will drain into a body of
water
now a body of water can be a lake
or a river or creek like what i have
behind me
so this is specifically a
creek this is tim's creek here in
shenandoah national park
and it is a tributary watershed so
all of the water that drains in the
mountains around it
flows down and eventually joins with
the white oak canyon watershed which is
part of the robinson river watershed
now an easy way to think about
watersheds is to think about a sink
so let's go explore a sink back in the
education office
to show you that analogy
welcome to our education office where
we're on a look at
watersheds so when we're out in the
field we were talking about them
but let's get a better visualization of
what a watershed is
so our sink right here is going to
represent our watershed
and i have a handy dandel spray bottle
right here full of water
that'll represent water coming from rain
or other sources
that are going to enter our watershed so
what we're meaning in this in a
watershed any water that
lands in the sink will eventually
make its way down the drain
so no matter where i spray this water it
will always
head towards that central body
right here in that center now if i were
to spray it
up on the counter that's outside the
watershed
you'll notice that water is just staying
up there versus
if i name it at the side of the sink
where then goes down into the sink
so now you have an idea about that let's
go back to the field where we can look
more
at watersheds in the park
so like that sink analogy we just saw in
which
all of the water that hit the sink went
down the drain
all of the water that hits the rocks and
the hillsides behind me
drain down to this little creek and
eventually
it flows out that direction but it
doesn't just stop there like our sink
our sink
it flows down the drain and then we
don't worry about it anymore
but here watersheds are a little
different they're kind of like russian
nesting dolls you have the smallest one
then there's another one around it and
another one around it and even bigger
one
and that's the way watersheds work here
this tim's river watershed is a small
nesting egg
that then flows into the bigger robinson
river
watershed which is part of that white
oak canyon
so let's see once it hits that robinson
river
where does it go from there that's the
next thing we're going to look at
so if we use a map we can actually see
where this water's going to continue to
go
and as it meanders this little tributary
drains into the robinson river right
behind me or
really in front of me behind you and
that's when they continue meandering its
way
eventually it'll also drain into the
rapidan river
which is a watershed over to the south
of me
that direction and then so now
all these have added together so we had
the tim's watershed
which combines with the robinson's
watershed which combines with the rapid
and watershed
so eventually it then flows in to the
rappahannock
and the rappahannock is one of the large
rivers in virginia
and eventually that meanders its way
till it hits the biggest watershed in
virginia
the chesapeake bay watershed this
massive one that includes
this very large area not just virginia
but includes maryland some parts of west
virginia and pennsylvania
all of them drain into that chesapeake
bay
now the water here meanders for over 100
miles before it actually hits that bay
but what is the reason that defines
where the watershed is
why is the tim's river watershed here
but not over at the robinson over here
or why if we were to hike
two miles that direction we actually
completely
leave the rappahannock watershed as a
whole
we then enter the watershed that goes to
the potomac
on the other side just on the other side
of this hill
all that water goes to the potomac
before it hits
the chesapeake bay what's the defining
feature
well let's explore that let's do an
activity where we can explore that
so let's go back to the head office okay
so we're back in the education office
and we're going to now discover
what defines watersheds besides where
the water goes
but what creates the edge of a watershed
so
i have with me once again our spray
bottle i've taken off the cap so it's
not a spray
but rather some drips of water and
my last tool it's my hand so it's pretty
easy to do so
this is a standard hand five fingers
a palm pretty straightforward but
if i were to drizzle some water let's
put water like right here
it always will go down in between those
fingers right there
it is always going down right there but
what if i put water here
okay that's going to be a different spot
now let's try the center of the ridge
right there of that finger
okay it could go down almost either side
we have found the edge of the finger
watersheds so it seems like
these edges of the watershed is defining
where the water goes so topography
elevation really is
the defining feature for where water is
going to decide to go
the watershed will tell you where the
water will end up
but it's that geographical features
the mountains or ridges
that'll really dictate where your
boundaries of a watershed are
so now that you have a better idea about
that let's go back to the field and
explore some more
so welcome back so as you've probably
figured out
elevation geologic features
like a mountain generally
are the boundaries of watersheds
so we have looked at this is really the
mouth
of the watershed here for the tim's
river and
mostly the mount for the white oak
canyon or robinson river
let's see if we can't find where it
starts or at least where it starts on
the ground
in the surface that we can see because a
lot of this water as i said it came from
the rain
so anytime it rains around you chances
are some of that water
is entering our watershed here but it's
also entering the watershed around your
home
so all of those little creeks have come
together to make a much bigger one
kind of once once again that russian egg
nesting doll idea and it gets bigger and
bigger and bigger
but why why is all this important why is
it important to me
why is it important to you well for me
it's important because the national park
service one of the things we're supposed
to do
is protect protect and preserve our
natural resources
on my patch there's that lake
representing all of this amazing water
but why do you care about it let's
explore that
so watersheds are one of the most
important things for us to consider as
people
because all of us are connected
at the beginning i said all of us are
connected because we all need water
but our watersheds are connected if i
were to put
any like a color chemical in here we
would watch that color chemical
move throughout all of the central
virginia
on that rappahannock watershed to
eventually hit the chesapeake bay
so anything you put into the water will
continue down
the watershed affecting not just
yourself but
anyone else further down from you so
making sure we protect our watersheds is
so important
so let's think about what are some ways
that you
can help protect a watershed like this
one
so before we look at how you can help
keep these watersheds clean
how do we know if water is clean
how do we know this is a healthy
watershed well there's lots of different
ways
one of them scientists use is chemical
testing
so we'll look at things like the ph or
the acidity level
of the water because water is naturally
a perfect
neutral not acidic and not
basic so we can look and see is there
something that's causing that to change
or we can also look at the dissolved
oxygen
or the do and that everything that lives
in the water even fish
still need oxygen so we need to see he
doesn't have enough
temperature is another good one
so we have scientists in the park that
their whole job is to monitor things
like this
and one of the other things they look at
is actually
insects or more accurately
tiny insects sometimes baby insects or
larvae
that are in the water we like to term
those macroinvertebrates
so let's take a second let's go back to
the education office
and look at some macro invertebrates and
maybe do some identification
okay so as we had said before scientists
and even you can use macroinvertebrates
that you find
in a water shed to be able to determine
the
overall water health or habitat health
of that stream or watershed
so we're actually going to go out to one
of our local streams here in the park
and we're going to do
some macro invertebrate surveys so what
that means is we're only look under
rocks
use nets to see if we can find
animals that are living under the rocks
in our creek now macroinvertebrates get
their name
because unlike us where we have our
bones on the inside of our body
macroinvertebrates actually have theirs
on the outside
so the invertebrate part of their term
means it's on the outside
now the macro in this is actually
meaning small
which is kind of ironic because the
latin for macro actually means big
but in this case we're meaning instead
of microscopic organisms we're meaning
organisms that are small enough that we
can see them
without the aid of a microscope so let's
go in and take a look at what we can
find
okay so the first one we're going to
look at is this on this rock
so you'll notice we have this almost
looks like a worm he's crawling his way
out from
under his home that he's created on this
rock
now we can start to identify him by some
of the features one
by his shape we know that he has legs so
he's not going to be like a snail
and he has little arms on his front end
about three of them and there's no
obvious tail so that tells us this is
probably a caddisfly the other way is
that structure he's crawled out from
that we're looking at
this is a caddisfly home a nest that
they create themselves
that they latch onto in the rocks so
this one
there's a couple things we can notice
you'll notice as he's moving around
you'll see
along his abdomen that there's these
almost like
hair like structures that are moving and
vibrating
and those are gills so we know he has
those gills on the side and
he has three tails those are all really
important identifiers
and that tells me that this is probably
a mayfly
and here's our next one so we have this
macro verb that has two tails
i'm looking at them i'm not seeing any
visible movement like those hairs we saw
on the previous one
so i'm going to say that this is
probably a stone fly those two tails are
one of the big
identifiers for him they are frequently
known to have their gills along their
legs
which can be a little bit harder to see
easily okay so this one
it looks very similar to that previous
one that we had you'll notice how
he's very big and looks like he has
armor on him and
the two tails on the back once again
tell us that this is probably a stone
fly but
if you've seen the difference from the
previous stoneflies that we have seen
this one having those big almost armor
plates on his back
is probably a different subspecies of
stonefly
okay so this one you'll notice we have
almost looks like a gelatinous
mass under the underside of this rock
that we found
and so this is actually not a
macroinvertebrate
these are actually a clue for another
species or animals that could be living
here
because these are eggs from amphibians
so they are
vertebrates so they aren't invertebrates
they have their
spinal structure inside of them versus
on the outside
and so with time all these eggs will
hatch into
tadpoles that eventually will change
into
either a frog or a salamander or other
amphibian
okay this next one we have oh he's a
little different than anyone else we've
seen so far
you'll notice look at how he's moving
he's almost
like contracting himself to move
and so i'm gonna take a guess and this
might be in the leach
family i actually don't know
specifically which one this is
but you'll notice in his movement
structure he doesn't have any legs
or any tails like any of the other macro
invertebrates we've seen today
and he's almost a little see-through
which is interesting in and of itself
but that motion-like structure is very
similar to how leeches move so that's
why monte gas he's probably a leech
oh and here's another good one and you
might notice
if you look very closely at this one
while he's the same size as our macro
invertebrates
there is a very very almost invisible
skeleton you can see
through on him and so this is not a
macroinvertebrate it is a vertebrate
and it's one of our little minnows
probably a very young
minnow and you can actually almost see
through his whole body it's really
interesting you can see his whole
intestinal structure and his stomach in
there
and here's one that it's another one of
our stone flies but this one you can
actually if you look
while he's on his habitat this is where
we find most of stoneflies is clinging
to rocks like this
they're not only floating in the water
but if you notice you'll actually see
the gills on his abdomen
moving back and forth and so
this is a great example to be able to
see those gills that are on his arm
and abdomen and here's another example
of a caddisfly
coming out and you can see his little
home right there
and there's more amphibian eggs so this
rock actually is a great example
of how rocks and streams can be multiple
habitats
for lots of different macroinvertebrates
so welcome back now that we've explored
macroinvertebrates and you've learned
about how some of them can tell you
about the quality of the water and the
health
of the watershed you can even do this on
your own
you can with permission from your
parents and then making sure wherever
you're doing your stream study
or looking for your macro invertebrates
make sure that it is something you're
allowed to do and you get permission
but make sure any that you look at just
like we did we returned back to where we
found them
but now let's look at how you can help
protect the watershed yourself
and there's lots of things there are
so many things that you can do sometimes
it's even just a small thing
take a shorter shower or bath if you
reduce your usage of water
that's less water that we waste it's
less water that we need to clean again
there's a lot of different things think
about how you're disposing of liquids
rather than maybe throwing grease down
the sink
look at maybe throwing it away or
disposing of it or reusing
it if you want to learn more about how
there are different ways that you can
help
watersheds there are a lot of resources
online
virginia's department of fisheries and
inland game
have a lot of resources available to you
the epa even has
resources that can tell you about what
watershed you're in
and how your water is clean so
we have reached the end of our
watersheds program
i hope you've enjoyed learning about
watersheds
how we're all connected by water
and i hope you've enjoyed learning a
little bit about them as well
so i encourage you explore your parks
remember
all the national parks are owned by us
we the people the united states these
are our parks
and they're here for us to discover so
thank you for listening in if you want
to learn more
explore shenandoah our website at
www.nps.gov
shen shen and
continue learning thank you have a great
rest your day