My 2012 summer Externship is at Wickiup Hills Learning Center & Area. I will be working with two other externs, Angie and John. We will be doing various projects for the naturalists at the learning center. But one of our main projects will be to monitor various sites of the Middle Cedar Watershed. We attended the training workshop in Davenport this week. We learned how to do chemical testing for pH, phosphate, chloride, oxygen, and nitrates & nitrites. We learned how to do habitat and physical monitoring. And then how to test for bacteria, such as the bad e-coli. It was very cool, very fun. A lot of hands on experience. Throughout the next few weeks we will be monitoring some of the creeks, marshland, streams, Palo reservoir, and the Cedar River. We would like to use our data to add to the DNR's database and to create teaching videos and curriculums for our classrooms and for Wickiup.