Freshwater systems harbor an abundance of biodiversity and are increasingly threatened by climate change, particularly through elevated temperatures. Central to freshwater food webs, zooplankton act as important intermediaries among micro- and macro-foodwebs, transferring nutrients from phytoplankton to higher trophic levels. Previous work found that larval salamanders respond to elevated temperatures in part by altering the size of zooplankton on which they feed. However, there is less known about how climate change-driven increases in water temperature affect freshwater zooplankton assemblages. This lack of knowledge is in part due to the time-consuming nature of collecting and analyzing zooplankton community data. To combat this challenge, we developed an affordable sample scanning technique, and used this along with an open-source imaging technology (PlanktoScope) to classify zooplankton communities before and after experiencing heat treatments. We used a 7 x 2 gradient-factorial experimental design, with 7 temperature treatments (Baseline, +1°C, +2°C, +3°C, +4°C, +5°C, and +6°C) and an extreme heat event (present/absent). We hypothesized that with increasing temperature, the abundance of smaller-bodied zooplankton would increase until a thermal threshold is reached, with cladocerans increasing at the greatest rate. Additionally, we hypothesized that both total Shannon diversity and species richness would decrease in tanks with heatwave treatments, with the magnitude of decrease proportional to the amount of temperature stress. Preliminary counts of zooplankton indicate higher total abundance in communities at the end of the experiment compared to the beginning. Low rates of mortality were also observed throughout the experiment across all treatments, suggesting resilience among zooplankton assemblages. We will create multiple regression models to analyze the relationship between temperature and subsequent shifts in zooplankton assemblage composition. Further data collection and analysis of body size will help us predict how communities of zooplankton, an important group of organisms in freshwater systems, will change under future climate conditions.