On June 30th, 2018, a few YES! students spent part of their summer morning searching the Middle Fork of the Crow River for aquatic invasive species. YES! students from Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City (ACGC) helped build up the new AquaHunter App. This smartphone and computer application was created by the task force for the general public. It allows anyone to be able to take a photo of aquatic vegetation and some aquatic animals and the app will tell you the species and if it is invasive or native to Minnesota. Since the application is so new, the database of pictures needs to be built up, which is where YES! teams come in. While paddling, the team collected and identified different native and non-native aquatic plants. They also took photos of the plants and added them to the AquaHunter app.
The hope for the summer is to get the application more accurate so the public can correctly use it to identify aquatic species while encouraging the general public to be more aware of what is being transferred from lake to lake. Two more paddling trips and two educational events will take place this summer with the West Central YES! Coordinator. Any and all YES! participants are welcome to join (just contact ali@yesmn.org)!
Schedule
| Location | Date | Time | Duties |
| Middle Fork of Crow River (Mill Pond) | June 29th, 2018 | 10:00AM – 12:30PM | Conduct AIS survey |
| New London Water Days | July 21st, 2018 | 11:30AM – 3:00PM | Educate the public |
| Lake Ringo | July 27th, 2018 | 10:00AM – 12:30PM | Conduct AIS survey |
| (Students Choose) | August (UNKNOWN) | 1:00PM – 3:30PM | Conduct AIS survey |
| Neer Park Education Day | September 10th and 11th, 2018 | 9AM – 3PM | Educate 4th graders |
For more information about aquatic invasive species or the AquaHunter App, please visit https://aquahunter.org/.
