Watershed Fest Time!

Watershed Festival season runs from February through March. We have educated 1,985 5^th graders on several different water quality concerns. Macro Mayhem is an activity that teaches the kids about the water quality indicators in streams and what they tell us about the stream when they are missing. I like to ask the kids if they know what Maroinvertebrate are. Often they think it has something to do with macaroni. We get a good chuckle out of that. They learn what a watershed is during the presentation with the Enviroscape and marbles table. I have them imagine that they are giants and Watersheds are where puddles form. Build your Watershed really gets the kids excited about what they would construct on their land. They pretend to be gifted with 100 acres of land. I love to see the kids build huge castles. They rarely remember that with huge castles come many bathrooms. We ask them what they are going to do with all that waste. In the Ground Water Flow Model, kids learn how water can actually pollute upstream. Lastly, with Drop in the Bucket we teach the children how it could be that we only have about .03% of all water to drink on the planet. We have two more Watershed Fests to go!

I Dream Watershed Festivals

Wow, I’m happy to report to the blog community that the new year at James River Basin Partnership is off and running! A single minute is hardly spared in the organizing of the upcoming Watershed Festivals. Little did I know as a volunteer what really goes into planning these huge events that educate so many of the areas fifth graders. In the years past I have been a volunteer for the organization, but this time I’m coordinating the event.

First, I invited 26 of the Basin’s schools to participate. After they confirm there participation, there will be around 2000 5th graders learning about watersheds. The students, along with teachers and chaperons will be rotating through five educational activities. There will be three cycles running at the same time. Seventeen volunteers will be facilitating the activities, that makes 187 volunteer slots filled for the upcoming festivals.

After everyone commits to participate, there is a volunteer training held at JRBP’s new office building. Whew! There are five festivals in February and six in March. I can hardly wait to see and feel them come to fruition!

I'm a newborn baby blogger!

WOW, it's all new to me! It has taken a little bit of time to get acclimated to this new professional life of mine. Before I became an Americorps volunteer, I was a full-time massage therapist and student at Drury. I have never collaborated with a group of people in an office setting with a common goal. In this case, I'm referring to my new responsibilities at James River Basin Partnership. I'm realizing how important this Americorps experience is for my future and the feature of the next great water protection agency I hope to work for.

Although I have been studying biology in school, I cant believe how little my prior knowledge in science is used at JRBP. This very valuable experience is teaching my how important financing, business and public relations skills are fundamental to achieving success in any water protection group! In the future I hope to help make big changes in the minds of individuals concerning how they view water. I would not be able to do this without the new professional experience at JRBP through AmeriCorps.

I currently am knee deep in the process of organizing for our future Watershed Festivals. The festivals while educate around 2,000 5th graders in the James River basin about how their actions effect the water around them. This is a huge event that involves 11 days of festivals and around 20 schools. Boy, I'm learning so much about putting on a program of this magnitude! I look forward to keeping you connected my progress!

P.S. I miss all of my new friends! And look so forward to our next "rain event"!

Earthday Ed Events
Prarie Fork Conservation Area
April 22, 2009

Well April was full of educational Earthday events. The one that really topped my list for the month however was an Ed Event at Prarie Fork Conservation Area near Williamsburg. The Natural Resources Conservation Service, Missouri Department of Conservation & University of Missouri (I'm guessing here) teamed up to organize around 650 4th-6th graders from area schools. Groups of 20 kids each went around to booths with educational/hands-on topics in Praries, Woodlands, Wetlands & Streams, to Soils. It was awesome!


The day started off when fellow Stream Team Assistants Pam, Katrina & I got an early start and headed to the nearby Whetstone Conservation Area to catch some live macro-invertebrates for our booth. It was a beautiful clear Spring morning, and I must say, the Whetstone C.A. was just amazing! There were Bluebells & Wild Sweet Williams blooming in all they're glory, Ferns, Wild Ginger, & huge swaths of Blood Root growing along a clear & cool babbling stream. I was in heaven.

We started doing the riffle dance in various locations along the stream trying to get the biggest diversity of critters possible. Katrina moved us to a larger section of the stream. Her mission was to find the biggest crawdads to put in the little kiddie pool we brought so that the kids could pick them up. We got tons of great bugs out of Whetstone including the biggest Cranefly Larvae I have ever had the pleasure of seeing (& touching). They are super squishy and I got a kick out of getting the students later that day to pick it up.

We rolled into Prarie Fork to set up amonst 20 or so other exhibitors, luckily I dropped Pam & Katrina off with all of the stuff for our display before I got River Relief's big ol' van stuck in the mud. I was way out in the middle of this field away from everyone where they told us to park, luckily a really nice guy from MDC came along and helped me out of my pickle. It took us about 20 minutes! But I made it back before the kids arrived and got to our booth.


Pam, Katrina, Lea & I ended up having to set up 3 different stations with the live macros because these were the biggest groups of kids (20 at a time) that I have ever had to deal with! The crawdad pool is always the most popular, and the kids just loved getting to play in water and with live critters in general. There were a few screamers, but mostly just inquisitive kids having fun. I think I just about had as much fun as those kids. What a great day!

A huge thanks goes out to the organizers. Having done big Ed Events with Missouri River Relief in the past, this is one of the best organized events I have ever been to. An even bigger thanks goes out to Pat Jones for donating her land as a conservation area so that people big & small can come out and learn about Praries, Wetlands, Lakes, Streams, Woodlands, Savannahs & Soils.

For more fun photos, check out our photo gallery.

Melanie Cheney
Americorps Stream Team Assistant
Missouri River Relief

Watershed Festivals a HUGE success in Southwest Missouri!

In March, I finished my volunteer stint with local watershed festivals. We exposed over 3000 local fifth graders to water quality. Last November, I helped with the two day Barry County festival. This year started with five days at the Christian County festival, one day in Stone County, and the school year was completed with a two day festival in Taney County. The post survey completed by the fifth graders, over the last several years, indicated they weren't retaining much of the information presented in the "Build Your Own Watershed" activity. Guess which activity I was presenting? The pressure was on! For the Christian County festival, it was decided to present the information differently. After two days, I found the students were not engaged with the activity. So on the third day, I brought a special friend with me to help. I brought Slimy, a yellow, plastic frog! (Can you find him in the picture?) Slimy was a HUGE hit. I liked watching the students interact with Slimy and care about what was happening in his watershed. He will definitely be back next year!