INTRODUCTION Wetlands have many characteristics that are beneficial and valuable for humanity, fish, and wildlife

. Wetlands decrease the risk of flood. Wetlands are like sponges that absorb water and discharge them slowly. Wetlands can hold a great amount of floodwater which can reduce property damages and death caused by flooding. Wetland implements a good habitat for fishes and wildlife. Wetlands have a lot of vegetations and shallow water which is proper for the different kinds of species to live in. Wetlands are also like a kidney that function in filtration. Nutrients from fertilizer application, manure, leaking septic tanks, and municipal sewage that are dissolved in the water are often absorbed by plant roots and microorganisms in the soil. Other pollutants stick to soil particles.1 We visited three different wetlands which are Miller, Beta, and OCC. The Miller wetland site was connected to upstream and down stream, and the Beta site was connected to upstream. However, The OCC wetland site was isolated which mean it was neither connected to upstream nor down stream. Our purpose of this lab was to find out whether or not the three sites of wetlands had the same quality. We used Indiana Wetland Rapid Assessment Protocol (IN-WRAP) to test our hypothesis. IN-WRAP had 3 tiers of assessment that we could follow which are Overview, Preliminary Assessment, and Rapid Indicators. By using INWRAP, we knew exactly what kind of information we were supposed to look for and record. We used this method because it is a valuable tool for evaluating qualities of wetlands in Indiana, and we could spend a minimum amount of time while getting the maximum information.2

1 http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/facts/fun_val.pdf 2 http://moodle.grace.edu/file.php/463/InWRAP_manual_2005_.pdf