Environmental Impact from Outdoor/Environmental Education Programs: Effects of Frequent Stream Classes on Aquatic Macroinvertebrates

Environmental stewardship is an underlying theme in outdoor education (OE) and environmental education (EE), but maintaining natural areas in a sustainable balance between conservation and preservation requires knowledge about how natural areas respond to anthropogenic disturbance. My five-part study investigated the effects of disturbance on aquatic macroinvertebrates caused by frequent in-stream activity by students during OE stream classes. I conducted an observational study of stream classes at Heartland Outdoor School (henceforth, Heartland) in Morrow County, Ohio during April to June and September to October, 2012 to determine the methods by which students explore the stream. Subsequently, I conducted a year-long disturbance study from February 2013 to January 2014 at two sites (one site impacted by student activity and one site unimpacted by student activity) in upper Alum Creek on the Heartland property following a modified BACI design. The year-long study enabled analysis of trends in the macroinvertebrate community in three distinct channel units (i.e., riffles, runs, and pools) throughout the year including two disturbance periods (mid-April to early June and mid-September to mid-November) when stream classes are regularly active at the impacted site. Results showed evidence of student-induced disturbance for taxa richness in riffles and taxa richness and "Chironomidae" abundance in runs. No direct evidence of student-induced disturbance was found in pools. During April and May, 2014 I conducted a six-week substrate movement and rock colonization study in upper Alum Creek to investigate the extent to which students cause rock movement and the extent to which rocks are colonized by macroinvertebrates at the impacted site compared to the unimpacted site. Results showed that in base flow conditions students caused rocks to move upstream, laterally, and vertically at the impacted site to a greater extent than hydrologic activity caused at the unimpacted site. Macroinvertebrate abundance and richness were significantly greater (p<0.05) at the unimpacted site than at the impacted site at the end of the study. Also in May, 2014 I conducted a one-week disturbance study to examine within-riffle and among-riffle effects of student activity on the macroinvertebrate community. Results showed no significant effect (p>0.05) of student activity for the within-riffle study, but did reveal greater percent clingers at the unimpacted riffle than at the impacted riffle in the among-riffles study. During June, 2015 I conducted a randomized block design experimental disturbance study in three tributaries of upper Alum Creek to investigate the effects of experimentally manipulating the stream substrate. Results showed no negative effect of the experimental substrate disruption on the macroinvertebrate community and actually revealed an increase in macroinvertebrate abundance and percent Leuctridae following the experimental disruption. Finally, I combined information gleaned from the field studies and observational study to develop the first phase of an index of student-induced disturbance (ISID) to serve as a predictive model for the effects of human in-stream activity on aquatic macroinvertebrates. In this first phase, the ISID takes into account student activity, time, and area of the disturbed site to determine a single numerical value representing the level of human impact. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]