| Havergal
College
Ontario, Canada |
Payson Seymour Elem., Illinois, USA | Colonel Light Gardens Primary School, Adelaide, South Australia | School
No.217
St. Petersburg Russia |
Pinehurst
Primary
Cape Town, South Africa |
Pingelly District High School, Pingelly, Western Australia |
| Ray Miller Elem., Missouri, USA | Rosenwald-Dunbar Elementary, Jessamine County, Kentucky USA | Pettisville Elementary School, Ohio USA | Fairfield Elementary School, Virginia USA | Compton Primary School
South Australia |
Cowell Area School
Cowell, South Australia |
Module One from Havergal
College Ontario, Canada
Pictures from Havergal
College
Hello Everyone,
It has been really interesting reading the first
modules you have sent.
Here is our Module One with some attached photos
(it may also be seen at http://www.hccommunity.havergal.on.ca/btaylor/modone.htm)
We live in a city called Toronto which is situated
on Lake Ontario. This is also the name of our province of which Toronto
is the capital. This
lake belongs to a group of large freshwater lakes
known as "The Great Lakes". They form part of the border between Canada
and the United States.
If you look at a map of North America you can
see them very easily in the eastern part of the continent. The lakes from
biggest to smallest are:
Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, Lake
Erie and Lake Ontario. Sometimes Lake St. Clair is called "The Sixth Great
Lake" and it is
smaller than Lake Ontario. It is located between
Lake Erie and Lake Michigan.
Lake Ontario is the smallest and most eastern
of the five Great Lakes. Toronto is on the north shore of the lake. In
the winter, only the water
along the shore freezes since the lake is generally
too deep for this to happen. The Canada-U.S. border runs right through
the middle of Lake
Ontario!
Hurricanes rarely happen in our part of the country
and only the most powerful storms reach Canada. Only one hurricane caused
serious damage in
Toronto on October 15 and 16th, 1954. It was
the worst hurricane in Canadian history. It was known as "Hurricane Hazel".
Our local rivers
overflowed and caused extensive flooding. Eighty-one
people died and the damage to the city was in millions of dollars.
Three rivers flow through our city: the Don River,
the Humber River and the Credit River. They have many smaller tributaries
one of which flows
right through our school property! It is known
as Burke Brook. We have noticed that part of this brook flows underground
while some can be seen
above ground. Finally, we have learned that,
unlike our Great Lakes, oceans have salt water. Canada is bordered by the
Atlantic, Arctic and
Pacific Oceans. Did you know that water covers
two-thirds of the Earth?
We are looking forward to learning even more about
something that is so important in our daily lives and yours!
From Grade 2T and Grade 2S
(Mrs Thom's and Mrs Siatkowski's grade 2 classes)
Module
One from Payson Seymour Elementary, Illinois, USA
Pictures from Payson
Seymour Elementary
Dear Partners around the world,
For Module 1, our class (ages 10-11) decided
to share the water experiments and learning that we are doing in
our science studies. We were very
interested in the natural processes of
evaporation and condensation because it became clear to us that these
are like magic in nature. These processes are
the magic behind the amazing water cycle
that allows our planet to continue existing. We worked in two groups
on two related experiments. One group
did an experiment called "Where Does the
Water Go?" and the other group did an experiment called "What's in the
Bag?" In addition, we calculated
the distance in kilometers and miles from Payson
to all of the states and countries in the Water project. Then we
drew maps of each state and country. Also,
we created a poster called Oceans of the World
to help understand something of that great mass of water that occupies
most of our planet. Some of our
photos are attached to this email. We look forward
to receiving your modules.
Cheers and Regards from Mr. Smith's 5th Grade
Class
Seymour Payson Elementary
Payson, Illinois USA
March 16, 2001
======================================================================================
Our Water Science Experiments in Module #1
Dear Water Partners, This is some stuff we found out:
#1. To set up our experiment we needed a
plastic cup, about 4 cm high. We filled it up about 3/4ths of the way with
water. Then we put a platform
in a plastic bag and put the cup on the platform.
We put green food coloring in the cup. Then we blew the bag up with air
>from our mouths.
We put the bag next to the window. We put it
there because it has more sunlight.
#2. Day by day we checked on the bag. The water
evaporated and made the bag wet.We called the process in the bag evaporation.
We predicted
that the water would evaporate on to the top
of the bag and then make a puddle at the bottom of the bag. Yes,
the water level will change because
of the evaporation in the bag. It changed
about a mm every day.
#3. There are a lot of ways that the Earth and
our project are the same. Some ways are: they both have Evaporation, they
both have water vapor,
and precipitation happens. The way that they
both have evaporation is when water evaporates out of the cup and
on the Earth it evaporates out of
rivers, lakes, and oceans. The way that they
both have water vapor is when our bag got cloudy and when the Earth
has clouds. The way they both
have precipitation is when our bag gets water
at the bottom and when it rains on the Earth. If this process did
not happen we would not have any
water. We would not have water and God would
not have made the World.
Sincerely,
Jordan and Krykette
=========================================================================================
Dear Water Project Partners,-
1. We put water in a cup, food coloring, and
a straw. We took a measuring cup and poured some water in another
smaller plastic cup. Each cup
had a letter on it. The letter was either A,
B, C, or D. We did this experiment in the back of the room on a long
table. We did it here because there
is more light in the back of the room than in
the front of the room.
2. Each day two people would go check their
own cup to see if there are any changes. Water appeared on the sides
of the bag and the bag would fog up.
The next day, little spots of water would
be on the bottom of the bag. The bag would get smaller. We call this process
evaporation, the process that causes
something to happen in the bags. We predicted
the water will evaporate which makes the bag get smaller and it started
to have a puddle in the cup. The water
in the cup does not change in the bag.
3. Some people think that this project has nothing to do with the
water on the earth, but, they are wrong. It is exactly
like the water on the earth. What happens
is the water in the bag will go through a stage called precipitation,
which is when rain, snow sleet, or hail falls to the
earth from the clouds some water soaks
in to the ground and some flows in to streams, lakes, rivers, and
oceans. Next, evaporation happens which is when
the sun makes the water warmer and changes
some to gas. This gas is called Water Vapor. It rises and forms clouds.
Last, when the water vapor gets heavy
enough, it falls again. Warm weather means
it falls as rain. Cold weather means it falls as snow, sleet, or
ice.
BY: Kala and Tegan
=======================================================================================
Dear Water Partners, Water Project answers
to the question
#1. We had a 3 cm cup. We filled it to
the 3 cm mark and then we put a drop of blue food coloring in it.
Then Ashley took a straw and smushed it and
stirred it up and we had dark blue water.
Then we set it on the shelf next to our computers. If it was sunny
it would have evaporated faster than in a shady place.
#2. The water evaporated every day. The second
day it only evaporated only down to 2.7cm. The third day it went
down to 2.5cm. The forth day it went
down to 2.3 cm. After the weekend when we came
back on the seventh day it was at 1.7 cm. We marked the cup with
a ruler. We saw that water evaporates
in the sun more than it does in the shade. The
water level changes in the cup. It probably changes about 4 mm a
day. 1.2 cm. was lost altogether. Water is not
lost in evaporation because it is now a
cloud.
#3. Out of the ocean water evaporates and out
of our cup the water evaporates. Our world would be so dry that we
would not be able to grow anything if
evaporation did not happen.
Ashley B. and Jennifer
========================================================================================
Dear water partners,
1. We used yellow food coloring, water, a black
marker,and a small cup. The cup is marked by cm to measure the yellow water
in it. We put our cup
by the window where it could stay cool. The water
evaporated faster in cool air. 1.You should get a cup with water
in the cup with one drop food coloring
then mix it up. 2.Set it any where in the room.
Then wait for five days for your final answer. 2. Our water
dropped 2.2 cm. Our process is called
Water Cycles. We predict the color will change
every time it will evaporate. The water changed about 2 mm. We lost
2.2 cm. But the water was not really
lost, it was going into the air.
3. The water goes with one of the cycles on earth
called the Water Cycle. If it does not continue our water supply
would go down. If the water cycle
stops, the crops would stop growing because
there would be no rain and there would be no food on the earth for
anyone.
Your friends,
Adam, Brandon, and Paul {The Water
Boy}
========================================================================================
To: Water Partner Friends From: Tori and Chris
1. To set up this experiment we got a clear plastic
cup that is about 4 centimeters tall with the letter A,B,C, or D poured
water in the cup put blue food coloring
in the cup of water, we had a ziploc bag closed
it half way blew air in the bag put a lid in the bottom and put the cup
in the bag on top of the lid. We used a cup,
a straw, blue food coloring, a bag, and a
petri dish lid. When we put blue food coloring in the cup we stirred it
with a straw that was about 10 centimeters long.
When we got the cup it was marked with
a D. When we were ready to put the bag in a place to take the prediction
we placed ours by the window. It mattered
that we put our bag by the window because
it needed sun light to evaporate.
2. When we checked our bag day by day we saw
that water had appeared on the inside of the bag, the bag had lost some
air, and the cup lost some water which
appeared on the lid which was a puddle. In the
puddle of water the water wasn't blue but the water in the cup was still
blue because when the water evaporated
the food coloring stayed in the cup because it
wasn't part of the water. When it rains there is not salt in the rain!
The process that causes something to happen in
the bag has two names which are evaporation
and condensation. On our data sheet we predicted that the water would
evaporate and the bag would be wet. In our
cup the water level change. Since the
water level changed we predicted that 1 centimeter left the cup a
day.
3. This has something to do with the earth
because when the water rises and turns into clouds and that's how the water
got on the side of the bag.When the sun
warms the water and changes into gases that
is called evaporation. Evaporation happened in our bag.If it didn't rain
and water didn't evaporate we would die.
If the condensation did not continue it
would effect as evaporation. =========================================================================================
Dear Water Project Kids,
1. First we got a clear plastic cup that was
about four cm. Then we filled it up about three fourths the way with
water. After that we added blue food coloring
to the water. Then we put the water in the bag
on a plastic plate. Then we blew the bag up by blowing air in the
bag with our mouths. We did that by making a
little area that wasn't zipped up all the
way. After we did that we sat the bag by the window to see what would
happen. The cup had a letter B on it. It matters
where in the room you put it, because some
places have a lot of sunlight and some don't.
2. Day by day we checked our experiments to see
if anything had changed. In the bag, water appeared on the side.
We call this process in the bag condensation.
On our data sheet we predicted that water would
appear on the side and the bag will lose air. The water level did change
in the cup. Each day it lost about 2mm.
Ours lost 2mm the fourth day.
3. In our experiment it shows that water evaporates,
by the sun. So on the earth the water evaporates, because of the
sun. We think that this process is important
and should continue to happen, because it evaporates
and goes back up into the sky and comes back down as rain. So it
is important, because the earth needs rain
for living things to grow. If this process did
not happen the earth might not have any living things on it, because
there would be no water to help the living things
grow. So when the water comes out of the air
it is called condensation.
From Nathan and Ashley
The students in Mr. Smith's class in Illinois determined the distance from their location to each of the others in the Water Project.
We calculated all these distances from Australia
to Payson. The closest was Kirksville it was 125 miles and 201 kilometers.
The farthest was
Australia it was 17,200 miles and 27,675 kilometers.
We will tell you all the other distances we calculated.
The distances from Payson are the following:
1.Australia is 17,2000 miles and 27,675 kilometers.
2.Capetown is 10,400 miles and 16,733.
3.St.Petersburg is 8,800 miles and 14,159 kilometers.
4.Virginia Beach, Virginia is 725 miles and 1,233
kilometers.
5.Toronto,Canada is 625 miles and 1,063 kilometers.
6.Nicholasville, Kentucky is 450 miles and 765
kilometers.
7.Pettisville, Ohio is 350 miles and 595 kilometers.
8.Kirksville, Missouri is 125 miles and 201 kilometers.
From,
Nathan and Jordan in Mr.Smith's 5th grade class.
Module One from School 217, St. Petersburg, Russia
Dear Water Project Participants,
For the past 3 weeks we have worked under Module
1. And here some results of our work.
On the 5th of March we have met with ecologist
from the water treatment plant Mrs.Savateeva. She told us about her
work and the
main sources of pollution of water, air
and soil in our district. And also how to prevent this pollution. Our
class take part in city
state project "Clean coast of the Finnish
Gulf". So the last week we cleaned the small river which flows into the
Gulf. The name of
this river is Ivanovka and it's situated not
far from our school. The length of it is more than 5 miles. Long
time ago it was even navigable,
but now especially in summer it becomes so shallow
that in some places you can't even see any water. Students of our
school 5 years
ago planted a lot of trees near the bank
of Ivanovka river. We hope that it'll stop formation of ravine. Snowfalls
in February and March
caused the river to overflow. And our class
explored Ivanovka during this time. We took out a lot of rubbish
and debris which you can
see on our pictures. Also we took care about
trees, because the end of the winter is the best time to clean them. We
have painted some
young trees by white wash lime. Because in spring
when the sun becomes hot, rind of trees may get sun-burn.
Also we made a graph
which shows the amount of precipitation for the past years. We used
for making this some yearbooks from the city meteorological center.
Data for January, February and March we got by ourselves.This graph
shows that during last winter we got a
great amount of snow and rain
We did some research about our main city river
- Neva. From this river our city gets more than 90% of fresh water.
The Neva river flows
out of the big Ladoga lake. Length of it
is 74 km, max width is 1.25 km. More than 26 small rivers flow into
it. Area of the river's basin
is 281 000 sq.meters. Great number of rivers(
total extent is 151 000 km) flow within the bounds of the basin.
For the many centuries
soils of the Neva basin washed thoroughly by
rains and water from melted snow. That is why water is so "soft"
and poor of minerals.
And all people of our city need to drink mineral
water in bottles and to eat more vitamins. More than 37 different
species of fish live in
the Neva river: smelt, zander, bream, salmon
...
We'll continue our work and tell you about it in our next letter to you.
Students of the 5th grade of school No.217 and
Oleg Siidra , St-Petersburg, Russia.
Response from
students at Payson Elementary in Illinois
Module One from Pinehurst
Primary, Cape Town, South Africa
Dear Water Project Pals
We apologise for the long wait. We have
been very busy at school with sports functions so we have been finding
it very difficult to
get enough time to gather all our information
together.
We live in a small community called Pinelands.
Our suburb is filled with Pine and Wattle trees, it is really very green
and beautiful.
We have a long canal which carries water from
the Black River and which fills up when it is raining. The
Black River, unfortunately,
is not very clean. The canal is dry at
the moment. It is summer now and no rains have fallen. We have
had two episodes of rain over the
past three months, otherwise it is very dry.
Have you heard of Table Moutain? Well it
is one of the most well-known tourist attractions in Cape Town. On
the mountain are 5
dams. They are Woodhead, Hely-Hutchinson, Victoria,
Alexandra and De Villiers. The water from these dams is first treated
before it is
pumped out of our taps. All the dams on Table
mountain are reservoirs. They supply us with our drinking water.
Steenbras Dam is named after the steenbras fish.
The river that feeds this dam, starts in the Hottentots Holland Mountains
in the
Boland.
Water from the Theewaterskloof Dam supplies Cape
town with about 52 000 megalitres of water per year. The water is
led to the Faure
Water Treatment Plant which holds as much as
500 megalitres a day.
The water at Voelvlei Dam is purified at Gouda
and then pumped into a high storage reservoir. From here the water
is piped by gravity to
Cape Town and other surrounding areas, especially
to industrial areas.
The Palmiet Dam started supplying water to Cape
Town in 1996, when it was first built. It is situated at the mouth
of the Palmiet river so this
reservoir always has a good chance of being filled.
There are small reservoirs at Kloof Nek, Molteno Dam, Kirstenbosch, Wynberg, and of course, Table |Mountain.
We look forward to hearing from you all.
The Grd 4's of Pinehurst Primary
South Africa
Module One from Ray Miller Elem., Kirksville, Missouri, USA
Kirksville is in the northeastern corner of Missouri.
We are the largest city in the area with a population of approximately
18,000.
Many farms are located around Kirksville; most
farms have one or more ponds for animals to use. A few farms have wells,
some are
used to water gardens others may be used for
drinking, too. Kirksville's water supply comes from two man-made lakes,
Forest Lake
which was built about sixty years ago and Hazel
Creek Lake, which is only about fifteen years old. The water is pumped
from the
lake to the filtration plant, then to the water
tower, ready for our community to use. Our class has been studying the
water cycle. We
have done some experiments with water and have
discovered some of the properties of water. We have also designed water
filters to
purify water. This year so far we have had 6.16
inches of precipitation. Most of it has been snow; some has been rain,
sleet, or freezing
rain. We had between six and eight inches of
snow about a week ago, but when it melted it only made .5 inches of water.
We look forward to hearing from all of you.
Have a great week!
Response from students at Payson Elementary in Illinois
Module One from Rosenwald-Dunbar Elementary, Jessamine County, Kentucky USA
We have a new web page on our school site devoted
to this project. You can visit
http://www.jessamine.k12.ky.us/rdes/gallery.htm/waterproj/waterproj.htm
and see our results. The reports below
are posted there also.
Water in Our Area
Our school is in Nicholsaville, Kentucky.
We have several lakes nearby, but they don’t supply Jessamine County’s
drinking water.
Our water comes from the Kentucky River which
borders on Jessamine County, where we live. Water is pumped from the river
to the local water
treatment plant. The water is cleaned with
chemicals and filters and sent to our homes. If you live outside
the city, waste water is stored in a septic
tank that has to be emptied once or twice a year.
If you live inside the city, waste water is sent through an underground
pipe to the sewage treatment
plant. The treated, clean water is put
back in the local streams and creeks that run back to the Kentucky River.
The Kentucky River runs into the Ohio
River, then the Mississippi River and finally
out to the Gulf of Mexico.
The water cycle never stops. First, the water
in the lakes and oceans is heated by the sun. It evaporates and turns into
gases or vapor.
The vapor rises up and mixes with cool air. Then
it condenses and forms a cloud. The water droplets get bigger and heavier.
The cloud cannot
hold the droplets any longer. So they fall to
the ground. This is called precipitation. Precipitation can be rain, hail,
snow, sleet and even fog.
Some of the rain soaks into the ground to feed
plants when it's not raining. Some of the rain runs into the rivers, lakes
and oceans. The sun warms
the water and the water cycle starts again.
Mrs. Bernard's Class
The water cycle is a never ending circle.
It starts with precipitation, which is moisture falling on the ground.
The water is collected underground
to feed plants. Extra water runs off into the
rivers, lakes and finally the ocean. Water gets heated by the sun and evaporates
and changes into vapor.
The warm vapor rises up to the clouds.
The clouds hold the vapor until it cools and becomes too heavy. The
vapor changes to a liquid and falls to
earth as rain, sleet, snow, fog, or hail. Then
the cycle begins again. It never ends.
Ms. Pridemore’s Class
Module One fromPettisville Elementary School, Ohio USA
Dear Water Project Participants,
We have enjoyed reading each of your introductions,
and have also enjoyed viewing your webpages. We have learned a lot about
you and your schools!
We're working on our own webpage, and will let
you know when we have it up and running. For the past two weeks we
have kept track of our rainfall
or precipitation amounts. We placed a rain gauge
inside a bush outside our window, but discovered it missing
this past Monday. We tried to place the gauge
into the ground, but discovered the ground was
still too frozen. After we realized our gauge was missing, we checked
precipitation amounts in our local
newspaper. The first week of March we recorded
no rainfall, but we did receive trace amounts of snowfall. The second
week of March we received some
rainfall, and snowfall.
Saturday, March 10, .1 in.
Monday, March 12, .35 in.
Friday, March 16, 4 in. of snowfall
We have conducted several experiments related
to the water cycle this year. We designed our own water cycle using
a hot plate, a teakettle, and a cookie sheet
with icecubes. The hot plate acted as the
sun heating the water inside the teakettle. The heated water turned
into water vapor and evaporated into the air.
The water vapor condensed on the icy cold
cookie sheet, and before we knew it, it was raining in our classroom.
We also filled two 1 liter boxes with 1000 ml
of colored water. We set one on a sunny
windowsill, and one in a place in our classrom away from the sun.
We predicted how long it would take each of the
liter boxes of water to evaporate. Most of us
thought the one near the sunlight would evaporate the quickest. Some
of us weren't sure if the water would totally
evaporate before the end of the school year.
We were surprised that the liter of water by the sunny windowsill
evaporated after 7 week, and the liter of water
away from the sun evaporated after eight
weeks. We also placed a graduated cylinder with 100ml of colored
water on the sunny windowsill, at the same time,
and there are still 30ml of water left
in the graduated cylinder. We decided this is because the opening
in the graduated cylinder is much smaller than the opening
in the liter box. We each made step
by step books about the water cycle, and read them to our kindergarten
pals. We even learned a song to the tune of Are You Sleeping?,
Are You Sleeping? and sang this song for our kindergarten friends.
It was fun to teach them about the water cycle. Maybe you'd like
to learn it, too.
These are the words to our song: Water
Cycle, Water Cycle, all around, this we found. Here is how to do
it, water runs all through it, here and gone, moving on. From the
ocean, lakes and rivers, to the air, everywhere, rain or snowy weather
brings it down together, here and gone, moving on. Evaporation, evaporation,
condensation, condensation, precipitation, precipitation, accumulation,
accumulation We also did some research about where water comes
from in our area.
Three fourths of the members of our classroom
get our water at home from wells, because we live in the country.
The water we use at school, and in our very
small community of Pettisville is piped to us
from Archbold, OH, a neighboring community. The water supply for Archbold
actually begins in Michigan at a
spring fed lake called Devil's Lake. From
Devil's Lake the water flows into various streams and tributaries, eventually
ending up in the Tiffin River. The Tiffin
River is about five miles north of Archbold,
OH. Water is pumped from the Tiffin River into the Archbold Reservoir.
There it is treated and then pumped to
Pettisville. The reason that Pettisville gets
its water from Archbold, is because many of the wells in our community
were beginning to go dry, and people were
frustrated about the lack of water pressure in
their homes. Archbold had plenty of water to spare, and so it was
decided that they would pipe their water to us.
We look forward to hearing from each of
you.
Pettisville Third Grade Students from Mrs. Walsh's
class.
Response from
students at Payson Elementary in Illinois
Module One from Fairfield
Elementary School Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA
Maps of our location.
Our city is in the southeastern corner of the
state of Virginia. We call our area Tidewater because of all of the
small rivers and creeks that are affected by the ocean tides. The
east boundary of our city is the Atlantic Ocean. We have a long beach
that is very popular with tourists in the summer. The northern boundary
of our city is the Chesapeake Bay. It is the largest bay in the United
States. There are many rivers that come from the low mountains to
our west and empty into the bay. Some of these rivers are the Elizabeth
River, the James River, the Rappahannock River, the Potomac River and the
Susquehanna River. We have a tide on the ocean and the bay that goes
up and down about three feet (1 meter) twice a day. One of the branches
of the Elizabeth River is about 1/4 of a mile >from our school. Here
it is only about 30 yards wide.
We have 2 small lakes near our school
that were made when large pits were dug to get dirt and rock for building
roads in our area. One is Lake James. It is about a half mile
long and a quarter mile wide. We think the deepest part is about
40 feet deep. We can swim in it in the summer and some small sailboats
use it also. Last December it was about 1/4 covered with ice.
Some people also fish in the lake.
Our city is very flat and the streams
and man made drain ditches we have help drain rain water to the bay or
the ocean.
The southern most part of our ocean
beach is actually a long thin peninsula that is part of the barrier islands
that go for more than 500 miles south. On the side away from the
ocean is Back Bay which connect to Currituck Sound to the south.
Back Bay is about 2 miles across and it is only about 10 feet deep.
Currituck Sound goes for about 30 miles south and most of it is less than
15 feet deep.
The intracoastal waterway goes through
the southern part of our city. It is a combination of canals and
natural waterways that stretches from Delaware Bay (the next Bay north
of the Chesapeake Bay) all the way down to the Florida Keys. Those
are the islands at the south end of Florida which is the big peninsula
that sticks down from North America. Boats and barges use this
to move up and down the coast without having to go out into the ocean.
The southern third of our city is
mostly farmland or swamp. There is a huge swamp just west of us called
the Great Dismal Swamp. It has a big lake in the middle of it called
Lake Drummond. People have seen all kinds of animals in this swamp
including black bears. There are also many snakes in the swamp.
Some people go fishing there but no one goes swimming.
The Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the biggest
body of water here (obviously). It changes with the seasons here.
Right now the temperature is about 47 deg F (about 9 deg C). In the
summer it can get up to 80 deg F ( about 27 deg C) We swim
in the ocean from May through October, depending on the weather.
We get thousands of visitors every summer that come to enjoy the beaches.
In the summer we also have hundreds of bottlenose dolphins in the ocean
and the bay around us. They come for the bay anchovies and other
small fish that are abundant in the summer. In the winter we frequently
have juvenile Humpback and Fin whales that spend 1 to 3 months feeding
off shore. If the water stays above 49 deg F they sometimes come
in close enough that we can see them from the beach. We have an excellent
Marine Science Museum that arranges with some of the larger tourist fishing
boats to do whale watching trips. They go as far as 15 miles off
shore looking for the whales. This year the have seen some whales
but because of the cold spell we had in December they have tended to stay
farther out this year.
The Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is a huge bay
that is fairly shallow. It is about 175 miles (about 280 km) to the
north end of the bay. At the widest point it is a little over 25
miles wide. The mouth of the bay where it opens to the Atlantic Ocean
is about 14 miles across. That is from Cape Henry (in Virginia Beach)
to Cape Charles (north of us). The average depth of the bay is only
30 feet (less than 10 meters). The deepest hole in the bay is only
125 feet. We can swim in the bay from May through September or October
depending on the temperature. We had some ice on the bay this year
but it did not last long. In January of 1977 it froze all of the
way across. In the summer the water temperature can get up in the
low 80's F.
We have attached 3 maps of our area showing different views.
We have attached this report as a Microsoft Word file also.
Looking forward to hearing from you - Fairfield Falcons