On June 6, 2009, the Shepherd of the Hills Fish Hatchery , Branson, sponsored a Family Fish Day for local and visiting families. The weather was great and the fishing pond was well-stocked! Gopala Borchelt, project director for Table Rock Lake Water Quality, Inc., and I volunteered at the macroinvertebrate table. We had three trays of critters and a tub of crawdads. The critters had traveled from the James River around Galena.
We had lots of visitors. . .it was a treat to watch the kids pick up a rock from one the trays, t
urn it over, and see the critters wiggle! I had taken my collection of critters in vials-I had several examples that weren't in the trays. We made two streams using a blue, plastic table cloth and rocks with pictures of macroinvertebrates glued on them. One stream had critters that were sensitive to pollutants representing a healthy stream and the other stream had critters which were more tolerant of pollutants. A prize was offered for visitors who could (with the help of a chart) identify which stream was which.
urn it over, and see the critters wiggle! I had taken my collection of critters in vials-I had several examples that weren't in the trays. We made two streams using a blue, plastic table cloth and rocks with pictures of macroinvertebrates glued on them. One stream had critters that were sensitive to pollutants representing a healthy stream and the other stream had critters which were more tolerant of pollutants. A prize was offered for visitors who could (with the help of a chart) identify which stream was which. 
The younger visitors to our station loved the crawdad tattoos provided by MO Stream Team. Overall, I found the older visitors were surprised that the health of a stream could be determined by what was living in the stream not some chemical test done on the water in lab. AND they could be the investigator! Yeah for our stream team volunteers!
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