AmeriCorps Week May 10th-14th 2010

AmeriCorps Week May 10^th-14^th 2010 by Julia Karll

We planned three days of activities for AmeriCorps week, to really turn it into a week of service, and I thought it would be a good idea to have other events planned in case of rain. And did it rain!

We scheduled a storm drain stenciling on the Tuesday of that week, a litter pick up on Wednesday, and a Water Quality Monitoring for Thursday. Each event was to start at 10am and run until noon. Jumpstart AmeriCorps in Columbia asked if they could join our activities as they hadn’t planned anything, and had joined us in past years. As it turned out, only 2 jumpstart were able to come the first day and no one turned out for the other days.

It rained on Tuesday, so the ground was wet and a little cold, so we didn’t stencil storm drains, but we did pick up trash, a safe distance from the rushing water along Bear Creek, access off of Big Bear Blvd and Rangeline. We parked at the food bank and walked down the road to the trail, picked up trash, walked back and picked up in a parking lot. We asked the food bank to use their dumpster, which they agreed. Get permission!

The next day it rained again, and no volunteers showed up, so we canceled. And on Thursday, it rained again, and again, no volunteers. So one out of three events happened! Success!

In May, we also said "Good bye and good luck!" to Sarah, the AmeriCorps and MRCN administrator. She's off to adventure in northern MO/southern Iowa to begin her graduate career with MU with bat research. If anybody can beat that White Nose Syndrme, it is our b@d@$$ Sarah!

Earth Day on May Day?

If you have ever spent much time in Columbia, Missouri in the spring, you know that Earth Day is a big deal in this town. I was new to the city this year, and even I couldn't believe the magnitude of this event until I experienced it!

Apparently another Columbia tradition is the reason we are still talking about Earth Day in May...and that is spring rain. When Earth Day Round One was canceled due to downpours and flooding, we had one more shot: Sunday, May 2.

Though the morning dawned a bit cloudy and chilly, the chance of rain soon diminished and the sun even began to peak through the clouds. This was perfect for the MRCN AmeriCorps members, as we had a long day ahead.

We started at Gans Creek to rustle up some critters. Unfortunately, because of the rains during the week, it took us FIVE net sets to catch anything work talking about. But our last one was loaded with crayfish, mayflies, stoneflies, scuds and sowbugs! We transferred the little guys to a water cooler and brought them with us to Peace Park on the University of Missouri campus.

Even though we arrived over an hour before the festival was scheduled to begin, we were the latecomers as most of the over 200 booths were already set up. We staked a claim in "Kid's Park" where all of the fun stuff was. From the time the festival began at noon to the closing of Kid's Park at five, we introduced hundreds of kids (and a few parents) to the fascinating world that lives in our creeks and streams.

We explained that this diverse, healthy array of critters did NOT come from Flat Branch, the urban stream that flowed behind us, but rather from a healthy stream on the outskirts of town. Hopefully our message got through to them, but if not they certainly appreciated the free pencils, coloring books and bug magnifiers!

Lance's post

April was a busy month. We planted trees, cleaned up a portion of Hinkson creek, baited about a thousand hooks and sold rain barrels. I completed painting and building the signs for the rain gardens, now they need to be installed. Oh, and they look great! It is an ongoing project and I will be relieved when they are installed, and my roommate will get her garage back. Take care everyone.

Excitement to Come

April brought the close to many of our big projects such as wrapping up the Confluence's Trash Bash reports and making room for many new opportunities. It was a month of planning and deciding what new projects the Confluence wants to jump on board with. With a grant from Missouri American Water, the goal is to help improve the Watkins Creek Watershed in North County St. Louis. What exactly we will be doing there? I will unveil at a later date! But be prepared for some real exciting news to come!

Personally I have been dabbling with some new education projects so that more students can learn the importance of storm water management and water quality. I was fortunate last month to assist a group of 25 students in the testing of water quality on Watkins Creek. To see the vast amount of knowledge these students have was amazing!

On another note, I was able to participate in Earth Day--- a great event although it was a little wet. Still, it was wonderful to see such high spirits.

Stay tuned for some wonderful news to come!

Wings of Spring!

April and May bring several marvelous events for us at the Audubon Center at Riverlands, but Wings of Spring is the most remarkable so far. In partnership with St. Louis Audubon and Forest Park Forever, we hosted a birding trolley tour of Forest Park and were joined by several environmental organizations with informational booths.

Then we took our migration message to area 4th and 5th graders from both sides of the mighty Mississippi. All told we had almost 450 students from 6 schools attend our field days at parks throughout the region! Several parners helped us pull it off, including St. Louis Audubon, the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center, SIUE, and Sierra Club. Students joined us for a full day of activities that included things like the Great Migration Challenge game, the Mississippi flyway, bird adaptations related to habitat and food, bird morphology, and empowered students with environmentally and bird friendly choices we can all make in our daily lives. Clean water, native plants, and no pesticides = healthy birds (and people too!)

Saturday, May 8 is International Migratory Bird Day ( http://www.birdday.org/ ). We celebrated the culmination of our Wings of Spring efforts with our second public festival day, this time at the National Great Rivers Museum in Alton, IL and at Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary in West Alton, MO. We celebrated the talented winners of our art contest with a ceremony and awards that included certificates, binoculars, and stained glass art. The students seemed to have a good time and I enjoyed the opportunity to acknowledge their efforts in front of their family, friends, and peers! Scoop the American White Pelican put on several shows for our visitors. He is a resident at the World Bird Sanctuary and never fails to delight and educate when he visits with his talented trainers. Several bird walks were attended at Riverlands, and we are pleased to have welcomed so many first time visitors this year!

Please do what you can to protect and support migrating birds on their epic journeys!

April 2010: Katie Park

The Open Space Council is moving forward with spring projects and getting ready for Operation Clean Stream. One of those projects was Forest Park Earth Day on April 22nd. Although it was raining, windy, and cold; we still saw through it and enjoyed ourselves.

There are two new additions to my booth presentations. We have a trivia board for land and water lovers, which allows us to educate the public in a fun way as well as getting people to think about conservation and preservation of our natural resources.

Another fun addition is our enviroscape. I was trained by MSD on how to present the information on watersheds as well as get them involved with the demonstration of how a watershed functions and how we affect it. It will be a great asset to my presentations during Americorps Service Week.

Big Piney River Clean Up!

Coming soon, I am very excited to say is the Big Piney River Clean Up! The owner of the Boiling Springs resort, whom I met through the organization of the Watershed Committee, has happily offered the use of his resort, canoes (for a small fee) and facilities in order for the comittee to organize the first large clean up in Texas County! We will have food, door prizes and all the free goodies we can scrounge to get our amazing volunteers! So mark your calendars and bring your friends to the Big Piney Clean up!

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Registration begins at 8am

15750 Hwy BB ~Licking, MO

Also, after lunch, we will have presentations from local stream teams so residents can see what they do and maybe even join or create their own group! More details to come.

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.

April=Earth

The month of April was a busy time the River des Peres Watershed Coalition, and there were a host of events and projects to work on. It was rather difficult to decide what event to specifically mention in my blog so I decided to provide a little bit of information on a variety of events. April provided great opportunities to work on accomplishing our organizations’ goal of improving the natural habitat and water quality of the River des Peres. From our monthly planting events at Deer Creek Park (special thanks to the Cor Jesu Academy volunteers) and Mona Terrace, to The Green Center’s (our parent organization) Free the Forest, an annual planting event in Ruth Park Woods in University City, Mo (special thanks to Top Teens of America community service group).
The River des Peres Watershed Coalition's first official rain barrel workshop with Earthways St. Louis (Project of Missouri Botanical Gardens), took place on April 8th.For the workshop being the first of many, I felt it went fairly well, granted there's always room for improvement. A total of 20 people attended, (including some last minute attendees), at the workshop participants, learned about water quality issues affecting the River des Peres, the importance of rain barrels in reducing CSO's and other stormwater related issues (around house drainage issues and erosion), and built their very own rain barrel to install at their homes. I found out that coordinating a workshop doesn’t always go as planned, but like water, just to go with the flow. We covered our bases by pre drilling the larger 3-5/8 atrium grate holes, marking the correct drill spots based on the selected barrel configuration and individually packaging each participants parts. While we had parts for rain barrel creation, I found there are lessons to be learned for having enough minor parts such as enough string for participants to connect bulkhead fitting component of the barrel; Or having enough Phillips head screwdrivers, but the participants summoned their skills of sharing and the workshop went along fine. These minor snags will definitely be addressed by our next workshop. Our 2nd workshop with Earthways will be at the Earthways facility in midtown St. Louis. Currently it is booked solid and there is even a waiting list, so I figure we must be onto something good. An added bonus of the workshop was we had an extra barrel available, that the RdP decided to paint and use it for the RdP’s tabling events.
The barrel made its debut at our Earth Day tabling at Whole Foods Store in Brentwood, Mo. Our painting theme was obviously water, the prompt “The World Needs Water”, what things need water for life, we encouraged kids, and some kids at heart to join us for rain barrel painting and informational brochures on rain barrels and the watershed. I must admit I had a wonderful time at the Earth Day event; I was impressed by the artistry, and creativity of the painters. From Danelle Haake ‘s from memory recreation of the River des Peres Watershed, to the butterflies, birds, and trees that graced our barrel, through the help of volunteers and interested passers by. (Even the kid who made the fireball flower!).
On a cold, wet, and windy Sunday April 25th, I attended St. Louis’ Earth Day Festival in Forest Park. At this event we had two rain barrels featured at our table. One of the main goals of the RdP is to improve the water quality of the river; we do that primarily by means of rain barrels. Along those lines, life is better with options and we thought it should be so with rain barrels. So we presented out painted 60 gallon rain barrel, and our special ordered Riversafe rain barrel (132 gallon) holding capacity, with built in shut off valve, and mesh netting for easy cleaning and mosquito proofing. The RiverSafe rain barrel caught plenty of people’s attention and thusly took the spotlight at our table. Though the 60-gallon barrel works well my needs, I do think RiverSafe barrel is pretty nifty, requires less overall maintenance/storage, and provides another alternative for rainwater harvesting. Based on the interest garnered by the rain barrel, I hope that the RdP’s long term plan of local production of the RiverSafe rain barrel can come to fruition, and increase the desire for more citizens to get a rain barrel and better improve the water quality within their watershed. I felt that April (perhaps with the emergence of Spring weather and Earth Day) brought a great energy to the RdP, that we are using to propel us into more action for the month of May. I would like to end this entry by sending a thank you to all the volunteers involved with the River des Peres Watershed Coalition, including Cor Jesu, the volunteers from Reitz & Jens Engineering Company, and Top Teens of America, and a host of others for being a vital means of assistance in habitat restoration, rain barrel establishment, and environmental education outreach to citizens of the St. Louis area.

Living Earth Day, Everyday!

Earth Day in St. Louis meant the 21^st annual St. Louis Earth Day Festival! This was a huge event, undaunted by tornadoes from the previous day and consistent wind and cold rain, and featured live entertainment, speakers, and hundreds of vendors, artists, businesses, government agencies, and non-profit organizations.

The St. Louis Earth Day Festival is held in Forest Park (which also hosted the 1904 World’s Fair). This year the theme was “Living Earth Day, Everyday.” Embodying this theme, the St. Louis Earth Day organization not only puts on the Festival, but also hosts the Earth Day Symposium each fall.

This year, the Coalition held a coloring contest for kids aged 1-12. The coloring page, entitled “Clean Energy, Clean Water,” featured a wind turbine, a clean stream, as well as a house with solar panels, a rain barrel and a rain garden. The back of the page asked kids to match those terms with descriptions. The idea was that the coloring page would both expose the kids to rain barrels and rain gardens, as well as teach them a little about how they function.

For the winners of the contest, we had fabulous prizes donated by the St. Louis Zoo, Science Center, and this cool interactive children’s museum called the Magic House. The people who designed the coloring page for us also donated coloring books for the winners. Although the rain and the cold wind made coloring difficult, we still had around 25 official entries, and even more who took sheets home with them. While the kids got to color, MCE staff had the opportunity to engage their parents on the work that we do, and hopefully stir up some more interest in our upcoming events.

A couple of days before Earth Day, I went to Crossroads College Prep to talk to their Social Justice group, who would also be volunteering at our Earth Day booth. The small group of 7^th and 9^th graders were extremely well-informed for their age (which I found out later was thanks to Jane’s efforts over at Audobon!). They had learned a great deal about drinking water and wastewater, so I chatted with them about stormwater and green infrastructure. Along with Crossroads Ambassadors, these kids were a great addition to our Earth Day booth, and valiantly stuck it out through the wet weather.

Rain Barrel Review

The ArtsFest this year was a blast! Check out this demonstration down spout to show the Rain Diverter kit in action! We had 8 beautiful rain barrels for the Fest. All barrels are being silent auctioned on our website: jamesriverbasin.com. If you would like to make a bid or just check out the art you can do so there! The barrels started at $150.00 and some are as high as $175. The funny thing that I learned at the ArtsFest was when you have an expensive art barrel for sale it is a lot easier to encourage people to buy the regular ones! Funny isn't it! Anyway you look at it, people who have the barrels are doing a great thing for the water quality of their community!

Shoreline Cleanup and Education!

What a busy month for Table Rock Lake Water Quality! We started this month with a bang and held our annual Table Rock Lake Shoreline Clean-up. I worked with the Stone County Fire Department and picked up trash with these folks. We cleaned up at Aunt’s Creek Park and picked up over 15 bags of trash. Luckily there were no big pieces of trash like appliances or tires. It seems after 10 years of this event we are making headway on the trash around Table Rock Lake. Volunteers commented that they didn’t pick up as much trash as they had in previous years! Here are some numbers (they will be increase as we receive the reports): 800+ volunteers, 1200+ bags of trash, 14 tons of trash, 300 tires, and over 200 miles of shoreline cleaned up! A successful event! Thanks to all of the volunteers for making this happen!

Table Rock Lake Water Quality also participated in the Earth Day Celebration at the Shepherd of the Hills Fish Hatchery in Branson on April 17. Participants were able to learn about new green ideas from various booths and were also able to tour the fish hatchery all for free! TRLWQ educated about our projects and I entertained the kids with live aquatic macroinvertebrates. It was great to hand out information to the kids about identifying insects that they could take home and apply their knowledge. We talked about the different pollution sensitivities of the insects and they noticed a different between the two boxes. One box had a lower water quality rating than the other. It was a great day!

We will be posting more pictures from Shoreline Cleanup on our Facebook page shortly! Stay tuned!
Table Rock Lake Water Quality, Inc.
http://www.trlwq.org/