Healthy Watersheds for Healthy Waters

Greetings from the Lake of the Ozarks! Caroline Toole, here, working with LOWA (Lake of the Ozarks Watershed Alliance) and AmeriCorps (MO Clean Water AmeriCorps Program, hosted by MO River Communities Network (MRCN)), in service to our community!
April found LOWA in school, working with students of all ages. Centered around Earth Day, we visited Climax Springs R-IV Schools on Friday, April 23, and had 10 different classes come out to their outdoor classroom to learn about the connection between healthy watersheds and healthy bodies of water. Climax Springs R-IV is a very small rural school with one class per grade. So LOWA and AmeriCorps, represented by Donna Swall, LOWA’s Executive Director and myself, were able to work with all the students from Kindergarten through Freshmen in the high school. In addition, a Climax Springs student designed the Earth Day t-shirt this year.

Our day at Climax Springs was busy, but went by way too fast, as we played an interactive watershed game from Project Wet showing the importance of a riparian buffer zone and as we performed some Stream Team Water Quality Monitoring at the creek running through the outdoor classroom.

I returned to Climax Springs again the next week to pick up two more science classes from the high school.
Returning to the idea that Everyday is Earth Day! LOWA and AmeriCorps took the entire 150 5th graders from School of the Osage to Lebanon, MO to tour their recycling center,

do some water quality monitoring

and play the interactive watershed game,

again to bring home the concept that we need to take care of our watersheds if we want to have healthy waters.
This day was supported by volunteer help from parents and LOWA volunteers. This was the first running for this field trip and most of it went very well. The main change will be how we schedule in lunch.

Anyone with comments or ideas for this field trip or other field trips with students or wanting more information about this field trip is very welcome to suggest them or contact me at www.soslowa.org or at ckingtoole@yahoo.com.
National AmeriCorps week will find LOWA and AmeriCorps working with the 2nd graders from School of the Osage at their outdoor classroom and also back at Climax Springs for more water quality monitoring with the upper elementary. This time the older students will have a critical thinking writing assignment about their water’s quality where they will be working with a water quality chart, comparing their measurements to the chart, ranking their water’s quality and then justifying their ranking using the chart and their measurements. Any stream teamers working with students who would like a copy of this critical thinking exercise can email me at ckingtoole@yahoo.com or contact Stream Team, Susy Higgins.