Today we visited the Nahant Marsh. We saw and learned so many new and different things. Nahant Marsh was the first super fund sight to turn into an education center. Iowa used to have 30 million acres of prairie where the grass could be 8-10 feet tall. While we were at the marsh we had four people who helped us at three different stations. Bob took us on a hike around a little bit of Nahant. Renae and Arnie helped us at the water activity, where we got to fish in the water with nets. Dave taught us about different animal pelts.

Dave told us that a while ago Iowa had turkeys when they needed otters and Kansas had otters when they needed turkeys, so Iowa and Kansas traded the animals. Dave also showed us and let us feel a lot of different native Iowa animal pelts. The smallest animal that we got to see and feel was an animal in the weasel family. The largest we got to see was a black bear.

On our hike we got to learn about a lot of different plants and animals. Bob taught us that Iowa was covered in prairie and now there is only 1% left! We learned that poison ivy has 3 leaves and is a pinkish red color. Poison ivy can also grow and look like a tree. It can look like a tree or bush. Only humans are allergic to poison ivy. We also learned that for a marsh you need 3 different things; soil, water, and  things to plant and somewhere to plant them.

We also did the water activity. We got to fish in the water with nets. We caught different water specimens. We caught snails, bugs, crawdads, and even baby fish. Then we got to look at different water specimens under a microscope