Eight
middle and high school students, staff, and guests enjoyed our last
week in July participating in the 5th Annual Stream
Scholars Summer Camp, a hands-on exploration of
stream ecology and conservation. We enjoyed wading in a WV
stream, working in a water quality laboratory, working with
computers and instruments, cruising on a research vessel, and
digging through slimy black muck dredged from the bottom of the
Chesapeake Bay.
The Scholars spent their first
three days in and around Waites Run at the Wardensville Town Park.
There they learned how to conduct stream habitat assessments, use
field and laboratory equipment to perform chemical analyses, and
study how to use benthic macroinvertebrates (to see some of the
small animals without backbones that live on the stream bottom click
here) to tell if a stream is healthy or in trouble. Alana
Hartman, West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s
Potomac Basin Coordinator, and Tim Craddock, WVDEP’s Citizens
Monitoring Coordinator for the
WV Save Our Streams Program, provided training and course
materials.
The Scholars spent the final two
days of camp on an overnight trip to the Chesapeake Bay. We visited
the
Calvert County Maritime Museum where aquarium curator Ken
Kaumeyer and biologist Linda Hanna took us on a behind-the-scenes
tour of the aquariums to see a variety of fish and other animal life
that live in the Bay’s estuary, the area where fresh and saltwater
mix. We also learned how the aquarists raise some of the animals on
display, such as skates and rays. Later, we toured a lighthouse and
saw how the keeper and his family once lived, poised above the
water. We camped that evening at Point Lookout State Park,
Maryland, where the Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay.
After making dinner, we stayed up late getting up close to some of
the Bay’s inhabitants, like jellyfish and crabs, at the park’s
dock.
On the second day of the trip
Steam Scholars visited the University of Maryland Center for
Environmental Science
Chesapeake Biology Laboratory and took a trip on the
Research Vessel Aquarius, a 53 ton, 65 foot long ship equipped
with a laboratory and an impressive array of scientific equipment.
The students were guided on a two hour tour by Education Specialist
Jackie Takacs, winner of the 2005-2006 Outstanding Sea Grant
Extension Program Award by the Mid-Atlantic Sea Grant Extension
Programs. While aboard the Scholars netted fish, trolled for
plankton, sampled the river bottom, dredged for oysters, and
utilized an $80,000 water sampler to test for temperature, salinity
and other factors at various depths.
We all had fun, of course, but
what is more important we learned serious lessons about the science
of keeping our waters clean and healthy. Grasping science early
will help Stream Scholars in life. Emily Bradfield, in her second
year of stream scholars, know this. She says: “I aspire to be a
veterinarian and because of that I want to learn as much about
biology and life as I possible can. I also support the environment
and I like to learn new ways I can help prevent the destruction of
our ecosystems.”
In the heat of one afternoon, we
spent some time indoors competing for the best score playing
Stream Cleaner, an activity housed in Cacapon Institute’s
internet-based
Potomac Highlands Watershed School. Playing the game, we
learned about management decisions people can make on their own
lands to help keep our waters clean. Armed with this knowledge, we
were impressed that the Wardensville Town Park was protecting Waites
Run from pollution by not cutting the thick forest that grows along
the stream bank., This ribbon of forest, known as a riparian buffer,
between the park grounds and the stream protects Waites Run by
reducing erosion, filtering pollution before it reaches the stream,
and providing shade for the stream.
During the 2007-2008 school year
some Stream Scholars will continue their activities with Cacapon
Institute in the new Potomac Headwaters Leaders of Watershed
program. PHLOW is teams of student leaders who get special lessons
on watershed science and develop their own watershed protection
projects. By learning about and protecting our watersheds, the area
of land that delivers water to streams and rivers, the young leaders
will help keep West Virginian’s waters safe, clean, and beautiful.