What is Project Clear

Project CLEAR (Candlewood Lake Environmental Awareness and Responsibility) got its start in 2001 and has grown into an educational program that is now offered annually to approximately 125 high school students from Bethel, Brookfield, Danbury, New Fairfield and New Milford and Sherman.

Prior to doing their field studies in late June, students spend four days throughout the school year in a classroom setting at Western Connecticut State University learning about different scientific topics pertaining to Candlewood Lake in order to help prepare them for their June field work. Project CLEAR students have traditionally also volunteered their time on Candlewood Lake Cleanup Day.
After the end of the school year in June, students spend four days doing field investigations on and around Candlewood Lake, followed by one day of preparation for their presentations to the public that evening. For the field study portion of the program students are split into the following groups: lake water quality (phytoplankton, nutrients, dissolved oxygen), stream water quality, aquatic invasive plants, residential lake shoreline study, fisheries, forestry, terrestrial invasives and dragonfly studies as well as a documentary group.
At the conclusion of the program's field days the students spend the last day of Project CLEAR preparing to host a presentation session which is open to the public. At the evening's events the public viewed a first cut of the video on this page, which was filmed and edited by the Project CLEAR documentary group. They were then invited to an open presentation session where they could walk around to the different groups and were able to speak with the students about their studies on Candlewood Lake.

Friday, January 28, 2011

CANDLEWOOD LAKE


By Raquel Carson



There are approximately one hundred and forty-eight species of Odonata currently recorded in Connecticut. Of them forty-nine are damselflies and ninety-nine are dragonflies. In Connecticut, the New London County has the greatest species variation with a record of 119 different species, the Middlesex County has 117, the New Haven county has 118, the Hartford county has 116, the Litchfield County has 115, the Tolland County has 102, the Windham County has 101, and the Fairfield County has 100 species.
No new species have been found since 2002. This is due to extensive collection efforts by the scientific community in the past 100 years. From all the Odonata species found in Connecticut eighteen are listed on the 2004 endangered species legislation. One is endangered, seven are threatened, and ten are of special concern. Although species variation is know across the state, little to nothing is know about their biology and ecology. Such things as rarity, breeding habits, flight time, ecology, and seasonality still remain a mystery.
Project Clear at Candlewood Lake collected a total of 61 specimens during a one- week period. Low amount of species abundance and variation is likely the result of weather. Lack of sunlight affected Odonata flight patterns, decreasing their appearance on the lake. In total four different species were collected. The most abundant species was the familiar Bluet (Enallagma civile), which appeared primarily associated with swamp dogwood. In lower abundances we also collected Eastern Forktail (Ischnura verticalis) and Dot-tail white face (Leucorrninia intacta). Only one Cobra Clubtail (Gomphus vastus) was collected. All the species collect are known to be found in high abundances throughout the Fairfield and Litchfield Counties.
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