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LEEDS — Forty students from Leavitt Area High School teamed up with Ian Barclay of Skindivers Paradise in Lewiston to study the invasive Chinese Mystery Snails in Androscoggin Lake, located in Leeds and Wayne.
After training in the pool at the Lewiston YWCA the previous week, the students geared up in wet suits and scuba equipment and ventured into the chilly water of the lake.
They brought with them 2- by 2-foot quadrats (a portable frame, typically with an internal grid) constructed from PVC pipe and attempted to count the snails in each quadrat.
According to Barclay, in the sandy areas, there were typically four Chinese Mystery Snails per quadrat, but in the rocky areas there were “6 or 8 or more.” The students removed hundreds of the snails from the water so they could continue their study in the classroom. They were happy to be able to scuba dive because, as Gemini Byram said, it was “not something you get to do everyday in school.”
The outing was the result a team effort lead by Ian Barclay, Scott Grimshaw, Rachel Madison and Marcia Martin for a class called Exploring the River Valley, funded with a grant through the Leavitt Trustees.
