10th graders are SMART!

I had a super fun day on the river with about 40 10th graders!  RCS does a lot of education events with local schools, so I tagged along on one with 2 sophomore science classes learning about their local watershed...

First of all, their science teacher was amazing!  I wish my science teachers had been that fun and great with students.  I might have liked science better.  We headed down to Sandy Beach on the Rivanna River, in Palmyra.  This was an all day event for the kids, so they all packed lunch and dressed for being outside.

There were 4 stations that the kids rotated through, led by volunteers - mostly retired science teachers! We led the station on Water Quality and talked to the students about the meaning of a watershed and the importance of water quality for sustaining life.  We had them test the 4 parameters of water quality: pH, dissolved Oxygen, Temperature and Turbidity. 

The amazing thing was how engaged the kids were through the whole lesson!  They answered most of our questions with the right answer, or made really great guesses.  I was always shy in school and was so nervous about giving the wrong answer in class, so it was neat to see how open they were.  

The other stations covered GPS and Geo-caching, river bug identification, and land management...

collecting river bugs!

sorting the bugs

some good findings!

It was a really fun day and I not only learned a lot, but felt like it was encouraging to see young people understanding and caring about their river.  They got to be there, touch it, and will remember this day their science class spend the day at the river.  We also got to see some of the RCS River Stewards and other volunteers on their way down river with 60 tires they had pulled out that day!  

These are the last of about 150 that were found in one area of the river this month.  Hopefully the publicity that RCS got for removing the tires will discourage citizens from disposing of their spare tires in the river!  It costs about $15-25 per tire at local recycling facilities, so you can see both sides of it.  Many of these tires had been under water for a loooong time.  It was a great time to pull them out, while the water level has been low.  There are 2 giant tractor tires still left to get out, but they will need a strong team in place to try and get those to budge.  My favorite day of internship so far!!