Ocmulgee River Lab

Even though I have lived in Macon for three years now, the lab that Dr. Rood led in the Ocmulgee was the first time I have ever been to the river aside from crossing over the bridge above it. While there, we were to do some basic testing. Because we were missing a level, we could not get elevations, but we did get a lot of different clam counts done in different areas of the riverbed as well as a jerry rigged water velocity test with what junk we found in the water.
Though I was not involved in the velocity test, from what I observed, it involved two people standing in two different areas in the river-one upstream and the other downstream with a measured distance in between. The person upstream placed the piece of buoyant trash in the water and let it float downstream while timing how long it took to get from one person to the other. Through that process, they determined the water velocity.
 Using a strainer of sorts, we obtained clam counts from different areas of the riverbed. We looked at areas that were more dry as well as the parts of the bed underwater to see which part the clams preferred. We also took samples from different depths to see how far underneath the clams preferred to live. Looking at the results, the clams preferred the most moist areas of sand to the ones towards the shore.
From what I understand, had we attempted to find the elevation differences, we would have used two long poles with strings that connected them. We would have stuck one pole in the ground and carried the other pole to another point and stick it in the ground. There would have been a level on the string which would have been used to make sure the reading was even. Through that, we would have found the differences in elevation.