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Rehoboth Elementary students learn about the lake in their backyard

Save Our Lakes Alliance 3 teaches biodiversity of Silver Lake
June 9, 2025

Todd Fritchman started his day scooping up critters from a pond – crayfish, frog larvae and tiny water boatmen, to name a few.

The aquatic biologist and president of Envirotech Environmental Consultants was taking them to Rehoboth Elementary School for the 14th annual Save Our Lakes Alliance 3 workshop.

Fritchman’s role was to turn fifth-graders into scientists for an hour, giving them hands-on experience with the biodiversity of Silver Lake, which is in the school’s backyard.

“Your job is to determine how many macro invertebrates you find and what they are,” Fritchman told the eager students. “What are these critters going to tell us about an aquatic ecosystem?”

The students crowded around picnic tables and, using spoons, picked through trays of organisms that Fritchman pulled from his pond to compare them to freshly scooped material from Silver Lake.

Their No. 1 question was, “What is that thing?”

The students recorded data, which they took back to their classrooms to learn what their findings mean about the health of Silver Lake.

Fritchman said the the young scientists found the lake had a lot of mayflies and those tiny water boatmen, which point to a healthy ecosystem.

“Based on what we’ve done before, it looks to me like Silver Lake is really doing pretty well compared to years past,” he said.

The fifth-graders will also take field trips to the beach and to the Smyrna Aquatic Center.

Fritchman said it is his experience that one or two kids who take part in the annual workshops will grow up to be aquatic biologists.

 

Bill Shull has been covering Lewes for the Cape Gazette since 2023. He comes to the world of print journalism after 40 years in TV news. Bill has worked in his hometown of Philadelphia, as well as Atlanta and Washington, D.C. He came to Lewes in 2014 to help launch WRDE-TV. Bill served as WRDE’s news director for more than eight years, working in Lewes and Milton. He is a 1986 graduate of Penn State University. Bill is an avid aviation and wildlife photographer, and a big Penn State football, Eagles, Phillies and PGA Tour golf fan. Bill, his wife Jill and their rescue cat, Lucky, live in Rehoboth Beach.