Cliff Stephens Park

Cliff Stephens Park

September 3, 2015
87F/39C beautiful breezy day in the neighborhood, light cirrus cloud


Our field trip was to Cliff Stephens Park this week.  This park consists of 44 acres and is located just before Moccasin Lake Park, both of which are gems nestled in the middle of single family homes.  This park consists of a marine ecosystem with dominant vegetation of grass and Oak trees.  The park offers beautiful shaded and sunny picnic areas, as well as a dock and frisbee golf. 

The purpose of the trip was to get to know the instruments of measurement we would be using in this class and that field biologists might use on a daily basis.  We had four different sites in which we were to use specific items to measure the habitat.  

The first site we measured water turbidity, salinity, temperature and pH.  The water is fresh and there were some men fishing out frisbees lost in past games of frisbee golf. 

The second site was an open area where we did transects, dropped pins and recorded what we found.  Two of the transects were virtually the same consisting of grass, grass gnats, weeds, dried grass, grass cuttings and dirt; while the third transect consisted mostly of weeds, light grass, dried grass, grass cuttings and dirt.  The soil sample was gritty, loam, formed less than 1" ribbon and remained in a ball when squeezed  We also did quadrant sampling to determine the percentage of cover of each of the above.
 

 The third site was a tree count where it was determined that there was 80% tree coverage at the park.  A soil sample was taken and it was loamy sand, no ribbon.

Then fourth site was under the canopy where we used a clinometer to determine the height and diameter of the sample trees.  It was determined that the trees average height was 25 feet with a canopy cover of 60%. 

It was another enjoyable trip with the field biology class.













The third station