Projects in Aquatic Science
Projects in Aquatic Science Emphasizing water sustainability and conservation actions, the Texas Aquatic Science book describes what readers can do...
Work in Water and Aquatic Science
Work in Water and Aquatic Science, Jobs, and Career Suggestions for students interested in work in water and jobs for...
Videos in Aquatic Science
Chapter Videos in Texas Aquatic Science Each chapter of Texas Aquatic Science begins with a video, 90 to 120 sec...
Water Technician
Working and Careers in Water and Aquatic Science A water technician does many different things in an aquatic science laboratory...
Living in Water
Texas Aquatic Science Chapter 4 Video Introduction (Click on arrow above to play video) All aquatic species, including fish and...
Water the Ultimate Recyclable
Texas Aquatic Science Chapter 2 Video Introduction (Click on arrow above to play video) The earth’s water is one, finite...
Conservation Officer
Working and Careers in Water and Aquatic Science A fish and wildlife conservation officer, sometimes called a game warden, enforces...
Benthic Ecologist
Working and Careers in Water and Aquatic Science A benthic ecologist works to study aquatic life that lives on the...
Fish Hatchery Biologist
Working and Careers in Water and Aquatic Science A fish hatchery biologist and technician raise fish to be stocked into...
Stream Ecologist
Working and Careers in Water and Aquatic Science A freshwater stream ecologist and river ecologist study the animal and plant...
From Sun to Sunfish
Aquatic habitats are communities in which complex interactions take place among populations and individual organisms as they compete for limited resources in an interdependent web of relationships. Within a community every species has a particular niche. A species’ niche defines how a species fits into its environment. It includes its way of getting food, the habitat it needs, and the role it performs in the community.
Living in Water
A species is a group of individuals sharing some common characteristics or qualities, and whose offspring also share those characteristics or qualities. All species are specially suited for the lives they lead. An adaptation is a behavioral, structural, or physiological trait that increases a species’ chance of survival in a specific environment. Every living thing has adapted to fit with where it lives. That’s what it takes for life to survive. Aquatic organisms live in water and have adaptations to do so. This chapter talks about life in water and aquatic ecosystems by fish, aquatic invertebrates, zooplankton, phytoplankton, aquatic plants, and algae in freshwater, estuaries, and the ocean, which in Texas is called the Gulf of Mexico.
What’s Your Watershed Address?
Everything that happens on the land in a watershed affects the water body into which it drains. A stream, pond or wetland can only be as healthy as its watershed. How we use the land affects the health of our aquatic resources, and in turn affects us and what we do in the watershed. In a healthy watershed, water is filtered and stored, but as water runs downhill, it can pick up whatever is on the ground beginning a process of altering water quality. When it flows through cities or across fields and pastures, water picks up dirt, pollutants, and heat. These contaminants flow into a stream, wetland or lake, affecting the water you use to drink, swim, or fish.
Water is the Ultimate Recyclable
The hydrologic cycle works like a huge water pump powered by solar energy and gravity. It is a global system, and every molecule of water on Earth travels through it. Because it is a cycle, it has no beginning or end. For three and a half billion years, the Earth’s water has been moving from streams to lakes to oceans, flowing underground, sitting high up on mountain glaciers, freezing and melting on the edges of the polar ice caps and forming clouds in the atmosphere. Average weather conditions over time is what we call climate. Texas is so large it is affected by air drawn in from the Pacific Ocean as well as the humid topical air flowing in from the Gulf of Mexico.