One of the painted turtles found near the holding ponds behind Hudson High School. -KD

Having just laid her eggs near the softball field, T6 starts walking back towards the Assabet River. -KD

This Musk Turtle was found near the ponds behind Hudson High School. It was weighed and measured, and later released. -KD

This eastern garter snake, found by the fence running between the our two ponds, bites onto one student as they try to take measurements. -JA

This picture was taken as the length of a garter snake was measured. This process requires placing the snake into a straight pipe to ensure it's length is as accurate as possible and the snake is fully extended. -JA

Measuring the width of a painted turtle using a caliper. This turtle was found by the pitfall traps between two of the holding ponds. -SC

A nest of snapping turtle eggs found near the shotput circle behind Morgan Bowl. There were 46 eggs in this particular nest. Each of the eggs are approximately the size of a golf ball. -SC

This was taken after all of its measurements were taken, so it had been handled a lot by students that day. Retracting to its shell is one of its best defensive mechanisms. ED

An American Toad was found in a pitfall trap between the two ponds. -JB

The turtles were not very cooperative, and failed to go in the same direction. However, we could tell which one ran the farthest, altough the wrong way. ED

A Pickeral Frog found in a pitfall trap between the two ponds. While measureing it, the frog tried to make several escape attempts.-JB

In the softball field, this snapping turtle laid 37 eggs. She dug her hole, laid her eggs, and used her legs to push down dirt and cover the eggs to keep them protected. You can see in this picture the way she puts her back legs all the way down into the hole and how she positions herself to lay her eggs

-JT

This is the ventral (under) side of a musk turtle. we found this in the second pitfall trap in between the two holding ponds. musk turtles are known for their horrid stink that dissuades predators. EK

This was taken on an early september morning, we were ripe with excitement at discovering our first turtles!!!! Everyone was slowly getting better at navigating their canoes, and our appetite for adventure was growing day by day. -EK

Here we see a small snapper turtle that we caught in one of our traps by the pond area. Clearly he/she is more interested in the area outside the bin than within. DF

The wee baby turtles begin their lives. Here we see them exploring the area. DF

This past week we dug up a total of 46 snapping turtle eggs from two nests. The nests were found between the morgan bowl bleachers and Chapin road. The picture shows the total amount of eggs from one of the nests. -LC

This picture shows all that is left of a few snapping turtle eggs after they were discovered by one of their most popular predators, the fisher cat. Fishers smell out the newly made snapper nests and dig up the eggs as a snack. We try to find the nests and relocate them to a protected area as best as we can but unfortunately sometimes the fisher gets to them before we can. -LC

Here's Lookin' At You, Kid.

A painted turtle gets his or her close-up. Notice the red stripes on the turtle's body and the complete carapace. These are the tell-tale features of a painted turtle.

Dan Freedman

Freedom!

Students are releasing the turtles that hatched from the eggs that we dug up from the previous year. We released a lot of turtles on that day but we decided to put them in the location they hatched and not directly in the river so that natural selection wouldn't be too affected and the river wouldn't become overpopulated.

Dallas Winters

Excavating Turtle Nests

Mr. Vacchina had discovered what appeared to be a few newly created turtle nests early that morning. He led the class to the area (behind the track and near the shotput circle) and we all pitched in to dig up some eggs. Unfortunately, we did not find any eggs, meaning that they were either false holes or that they were preyed upon by a fisher. Still, we did not let that get us down.

Dan Freedman

Weighing a Green Frog

This is a picture of us weighing a frog that we caugh in one of our pitfall traps. We caught many frogs over the course of our project and collected data on them such as weight and length and this is just one of the many frogs that we caught

Dallas Winters

This green frog was probably the biggest frog we have caught so far. She was very muscular and was hard to keep contained. We had to hold down her legs to keep her from escaping. In this picture you can see that she is clearly a green frog because of the lateral lines on the side of her back.
Leigh Casaceli

The students prepare to embark on a trip in the canoes in the Assabet river. On the river students look for two snapping turtles tagged with radio transmitters. Each group of students is in charge of moving their own canoes to the river and back, which is when this picture was taken.

Jarrod Allan

This is a picture of a musk turtle being weighed. This turtle fell into one of our pitfall traps and was then cataloged in our data. Other measurements taken include length, height, and width.

Jarrod Allan

In order to prevent the snake from slithering off the table, we had to zero the balance with an empty bag and then find the difference when the snake is added.

Eric Davis

We are trying to capture a snapping turtle after it layed eggs to check its radio transmitter, but it is not cooperating. Eventually we were able to get it in the bin.

Eric Davis

Chemistry Class on the River

This is a picture of our chemistry class on the Assabet River. We use the canoes to get a closer look at the river and to hunt down the radio-tagged snapping turtles using radiotelemetry. By going on the River, we can figure out where our two tagged snapping turtles go to each year.

Kevin Delaney

Incomplete Metamorphosis

This is a picture of a bullfrog in incomplete metamorphosis. It is a relatively young frog, and as such it has not fully absorbed its tail into its body. Many frogs in the spring are like this, as this is the time of the year when frogs are changing most rapidly from tadpoles to frogs.

Kevin Delaney

Green Frog

This is a green frog that we captured in the holding pond traps. They make a sound that is reminiscent of a twanging rubber band. He makes that noise to attract a mate, and to say hello! The placement of his eyes on top of his head allow him to get an almost 360 degree view that helps him see predators approaching.

Ethan Keller

This is a picture of the trench as it is being dug. This trench was used as the basis for the fence, in order to prevent animals from digging under the fence. When completed the fence will catch small reptiles and amphibians in the pitfall traps, providing the basis of our project.

This is a photograph of Jarrod measuring the width of a painted turtle, or Chrysemys picta as the scientific name. Notice the complete carapace that allows the turtle to fully rescind into the shell, keeping it out of harm's way. We keep all of the data about weights and measurements of the reptiles so that we can track the population history of the ecosystem.

Ethan Keller

Baby Snapper

This is a picture of a very young snapping turtle. We believe that this is one of the baby snappers that we released in the fall. This was a very lucky catch. She was difficult to weigh and measure because she would not stay still even with the towel over her head.

Amanda Cavicchi

Measuring Shell Length

Students are using a make shift caliper to measure the length of a snapping turtle's shell. The calipers that we have are not large enough to measure the length of the snapping turtle shells, so we make our own to produce accurate measurements of shell length. We keep the head of the snapping turtle covered during all measuring to prevent being bitten.

Stephanie Caty

Garter Snake Being Weighed

This is a picture of a garter snake being weighed. The cover is on the container so that the snake does not escape. Also, so that the weight of the container does not interfere with the weight of the snake, we must set the scale to zero when the container in on the scale and before the snake is added to the container. We only found two garter snakes.

Amanda Cavicchi

Breakfast Trip

This picture was taken as the students headed back onto the River after a class trip to get Breakfast in October. This was near the library in Hudson, Massachusetts in the heart of Downtown-Jarrod Allan

Finding Eggs

In this picture, students are removing eggs from a snapping turtle nest found near the shotput circle near our school. When laying eggs, snapping turtles dig betwen 6 and 9 inches deep and lay anywhere between 20 and 50 eggs. In this particular nest, 46 eggs were found.

Stephanie Caty

Baby Snapping Turtle

This is the underside of a baby snapping turtle that we captured outside in our pond traps. This ventral veiw shows that the snapping turtles havc incomplete carapaces in order to move faster adn escape predators. When we find baby snappers, we weigh them, measure their head-tail length, their width, and their depth.

Jillian Turner

Bull Frog With Tail

This is a bull frog that is in incomplete metamorphosis. You can see that it still has a very long tail and has not fully developed yet. When we measure the nose-tail length of this kind of frog, we measure from the nose to the base of the tail and from the nose to the end of the tail and compare the data.

Jillian Turner

Measuring Pickerel Frog

Here we are measuring the tibial length of a pickerel frog. Pickerel frogs are the most rare kind that we catch, and they are also the smallest. Their tibia lengths are extremely small and are usually very tough to measure. The tibia of the frog occurs between the femur and the foot.

Jillian Turner

Green Frog Captured

This is one of the green frogs that we captured in our pitfall traps by the pond. We capture mostly green frogs in our traps. When we find the frogs, we take them out of the traps and put them in plastic bags with water and air to make them most comfortable. After we have all the frogs, we weigh them and measure their nose-tail length and thier tibia length with calipers.

Jillian Turner

We were fortunate to receive a grant from Hudson Education Foundation to construct this canoe rack. The rack gets the canoes off the ground, and facilitates the removal and securing of said canoes. The rack was erected by Paul D'Alessandro and the STRIVE students in the wood shop. We thank everyone who helped make this happen!

-Ethan Keller

Weighing a Painted

A painted turtle is being weighed on one of our scales.Here we see the act of weighing one of the painted turtles that we caught in our pitfall traps. It is imperative to weigh these turtles to see their growth over time and to collect data on the size of the turtles in the area.

Dallas Winters

Measuring a snapper

Students measuring the width of the shell of a snapping turtle that we caught in one of our pitfall traps. Hudson High School students can be seen here measuring the width of one of the turtles that we caught. They are using a three-ruler method that acts like a pair of calipers because the calipers that we had were not large enough to measure the width of this turtle.

Dallas Winters

Pond Pitfall traps

Hudson High Students building the pitfall traps over by the pond.Hudson High School students are seen here digging and putting up the fence and shoveling dirt onto the fence to make sure that it is buried effectively to make sure that the animals are unable to get under the fence and escape.

Dallas Winters

Pitfall Traps

To catch the wildlife of the area, we had to build pitfall traps. In the picture above, we are digging a trench near the Assabet River and building a fence along it. We would dig large holes in the ground and place buckets in them so creatures would walk along the fence and fall into them. For this paticular fence, we spent most of our time standing in poison ivy patches.

John Barry

Woods Traps

Here we are constructing the bucket traps in our wooded area. We dig out holes in the ground to insert buckets so that each bucket's top is level with the surface of the forest floor. We also dig out trenches between the traps to place the fences in and secure them with pegs and piles of dirt (this is to cause reptiles and amphibians to walk along the fence until they invariably fall in our traps).

Dan Freedman

This is a snapping turtle with its mouth open. Because of its strong bite and aggressive nature, opening its mouth can be used as a warning to other animals. In this case it was a warning to us, it wanted to be put down.

Eric Davis

Radio Telemetry on a Cold November Day

Eric and Dallas are using the radio telemetry equipment to triangulate T6 (the snapper we tagged with the transmitter.) The directional antenna starts beeping when pointed in the correct direction, and gets louder the closer it is to the turtle, allowing us to relatively well pinpoint the snapper's location, but it can be tough to find the exact location because the signal becomes so strong that the directionality of the antenna no longer functions at close proximity to the transmitter.

Ethan Keller

T6

Here is one of the turtles that we have attached a radio transmitter to. We know her by the moniker, T6.
She returned to the school grounds in order to lay her eggs. She has been returning to the same area to lay her eggs for he past couple years. This picture shows her in the act, burying the eggs in the ground.

Dan Freedman