Moccasin Lake Park

Moccasin Lake Park
Kaelyn Jenkins

For being my first time to Moccasin Lake park, I was not disappointed. I never knew this beautiful place was tucked away in the city of Clearwater.  The day started off with the class separating into groups, one to pull weeds and another to dig a trench for one of the avian habitats. I helped with the weeds, which we learned were Caesar weed and Air Potato, that shade anything from the sunlight.

After the groups merged once more, we set out on a nature walk down the trails of the park. Along the trail, on one side was healthy nd undisturbed where as the other side had been recently up heaved. This disturbed side resulted in many invasive weeds, such as Caesar weed and Air Potatoes, to flourish. Moving onwards we came across a large collection of water that was tinted red. The red tint to the water was due to chemicals in the leaves that mixed with the water, changing the color.

Once we visited the lake, we headed back to the shelted picnic tables to discuss the different biomes of North America. During the discussion it was revealed that since Florida was once underwater, it is a humid sub-tropical biome. It is amazing how Florida's base layer was once part of Africa, then covered by a layer of limestone, which then was topped off by a layer of sedimentation from the Appalachian mountains.

The last place we visited was the lodge where rehabilitated animals were residing. The attention seeking turtles, which belong to the reptilian class of the chordata phylum, were my favorite.