First word of the day: Community
late Middle English: from Old French comunete, reinforced by its source, Latin communitas, from communis
Definition: A group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common. From the Latin root “communis” meaning common, public, general, shared by all or many.
Second word of the day: Amphidromous
Latin amphi- + -dromous
Definition: Migrating from fresh to salt water or from salt to fresh water at some stage of the life cycle other than the breeding period
Intro Lesson:
We began today thinking about what a community is. A community is family-like group of individuals that share a common place and lifestyle. For example, a school or a church can form a community. In many cases, these communities bond and become each other’s social support and resource. In today’s ride, we will see how the Bronx River was once a fresh water source that had a community of different species of fish. These fish would be amphidromous, meaning that they travel to and from salt water and fresh water during their life cycle. However, with the abuse of the river as grounds for dumping waste and with structures such as dams being built for the convenience of people, the community of fish that used to live in Bronx River became very scarce. Thanks to the Bronx River Alliance, the Bronx River has been cleaned up and a fish ladder has been built in order to restore the balance and the community of marine life in the Bronx River. Thankfully, this year has ben the first year where 70 wild fish that are native to the Bronx River returned to breed their young.
Bronx River Ride
The fifth ride of the season, and yet another rainy day! It was pouring by the time we started walking down 96th street to the East River Esplanade. Regardless of the rain and the slight breeze, our riders braved through as we saddled up and rode north on a familiar path across the pedestrian bridge on 103rd street and to Wards Island. From here, we continued to bike north towards the Triborough Bridge, and after challenging ourselves to the tricky ramps and across the bridge, we were in the Bronx.
In the Bronx, we remembered being at Port Morris and learning about the spray paints on the side walks. But considering that it was raining heavily and we had Jessica waiting for us at the Bronx River, we hurried towards River Park. At River Park, Jessica from Bronx River Alliance joined taught us about the fish and eel ladders that were built in the river. The ladders were created because the dam in the river made it difficult for herring to travel upstream to breed. Ever since the ladders were created, this has been the very first year where it has been actively used by wild, but native species of fish. By this time all of us were so cold that we decided to find shelter from the rain and to have lunch.
Riding back down alongthe Bronx Greenway, we raced on the path to see who could ride the fastest around the loops! We stopped at Starlight Park, under the bridge, to have lunch. Feeling like our extremeties were going to freeze, we all started running around and playing tag to warm ourselves up. We also took our long sleeve jackets off, because they were making us even colder by stealing away our body heat. After a game of ninja, we set off home. By this time, the rain had thankfully let up. We rode until we saw the swale, which looked like a boat with a forest on it. It turns out that it is illegal to forage for wild berries and such on city parks, but on the swale, it’s possible ot forage. It rained too much for us to visit today, but perhaps at a future time. We also found a geocache! Our next destination was Concrete Plant Park. We found another geocache, which was found by Jiamei. We signed the piece of paper, and we were on our way back to Beacon.
Today was a difficult ride, because of the rain but all of our riders rode really really well. Everyone was staying together and looked confident in their riding even with the cold rain falling. We were a bit concerned about getting sick, but as Cappy always says, being cold doesn’t cause illness – so we had nothing to worry about. Hopefully, our next ride will be not cold, but not hot either. GO CYCLOPEDIACS!
Participants
Candia, Adriana
Galinda, Maria
Knight, Destinee
Munoz-Medrano, Carmen
Navarro, Daniela
Sibanda, Farai
Coleaders
Georgia Bancheri, Alberto Rivero, Judy Lee, JiaMei Huang, Joseph Wilson, YueHao Wong
Ride Statistics
Miles biked: 13.8 miles
Program time (hours): 6 hours
Ride time (hours): 4.5 hours
Calories burned*: 895
*http://www.mapmywalk.com/improve/calorie_calculator/
Estimates based on 100lbs, 5′ 2″ ht, 13 yo, average between male and female.
Water Quality Monitoring Results
pH :
Nitrates:
Nitrites:
Hardness:
Chlorine:
Pesticides:
Lead:
E.Coli:
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