Summer Field Trip

This Tuesday was another beautiful summer day and a perfect day to spend at the river. Josh, Megan and I headed to the Kelly Island area to meet some kids from the Montana Youth Homes. They had been down to this spot a couple times to explore, so they were all excited to learn about the watershed that they had been hanging out at.

The group turned into scientists in training as they donned safety goggles and gloves and began to measure the amount of oxygen in the river. As the chemicals began to react within the test tubes, the group found that the oxygen level in the water meant that river was healthy. Next up, we took to the river with nets to see what critters we could find in the river.

Working in pairs, the kids stirred up the rocks in the river to let the river bugs drift into the nets. When we emptied the nets, we found that there were a lot of stoneflies, along with a few mayflies and caddisflies. These were all more good signs that the river was healthy because they were able to support these animals that are sensitive to toxins. One girl was especially amazed that the river that they had been swimming in had all of these cool bugs swimming in it too.

As we marched away from the river with our equipment in hand, I thought about what we had learned in our couple of hours in the sun. The river was not only beautiful but also healthy enough to support all kinds of animals. Everyone loved playing in the river and cooling off, and today we learned how important it is to keep the river healthy so we can all continue to enjoy it.

Erica Thye
WEN Fall UM Intern
Senior in Environmental Studies

Downtown Tonight

On Thursday, August 19, during one of the last nights of Downtown Tonight, WEN had the opportunity to have a display at Caras Park. Josh Gubits, Alaina Strehlow, and I set up three tables for the night’s festivities, with multiple interactive stations, including bins of live insects collected from our very own Clark Fork River. While the live music and smoke-smell of grilled burgers draped the air, many people stopped amongst the hustle and bustle to check out WEN.

At the bug table, we were met with many curious passersby. Dozens of people stopped to spoon out the variety of different insects, eager to examine and sort them into separate trays. It was really inspiring seeing the enthusiasm in the community for watershed education—a variety of people, from near and far, were hoping we could come to their own schools and communities to offer information and activities. We received a promising list of people interested in our program, wanting to support us and learn more.

While Alaina and Josh were teaching about stoneflies and their riparian environments, I had the pleasure of offering painting and coloring activities to the kids (and some enthusiastic adults). Some drew rivers, fish, and sunshine, while others took up my challenge to draw one of the many pictures of bugs we had on display. Children walked away from our station excited to hang their new masterpiece at home, and I must admit I was a bit embarrassed by the number of Missoula’s young artists that put my artistic abilities to shame.

By the end of the night, there was a great feeling of success. The three-hour event frequently brought waves of people crowding the tables at once. I was very impressed and proud that we had so many eager minds—one young girl even asked for a piece of paper and a pencil to take notes! I have no doubt that the demand for WEN is in full-force, and I am eager for a turnout such as this night’s at our upcoming events.



--Megan Girsch, WEN Fall UM Intern

Summer Time Stream Team

June 2010

Rain continues to fill the banks of Western Montana’s streams and rivers. Driving from Dixon to Missoula every morning, I am struck by how green everything looks. Balsamroot and Lupin are still blooming in the hills, and the cottonwood and aspen are putting out new growth along the Jocko and Clark Fork Rivers. After an abnormally dry winter, let’s hope all this precipitation cuts the summer fire season short.

As native Montanan who migrated to New York for college, it’s great to be home for the summer. Hiking in the mountains, and seeing wildlife, rivers and wide open spaces again reminds me just how lucky I am to live in our beautiful state. A couple of weeks ago, I started a summer internship here at WEN. I’m excited to join the WEN team, and to learn about river education. Part of my internship this summer will include weekly Stream Team sessions. Every Wednesday from 1:00-4:00 pm, a group of community volunteers and WEN staff will be heading out to monitor the health of our local streams and rivers. The data and information we collect will be added to a National online database.

Despite the rainy weather, Emilie Kohler, Michael Anderson, Michael Canseco, Al Pak and I headed out to a site on Pattee Creek last week for Stream Team orientation. Emilie showed us the proper method for each stream experiment. We measured physical aspects of the stream, such as the stream channel morphology and flow characteristics, and using a tennis ball, we calculated velocity. After taking the physical measurements, I pulled on my waders, and along with Michael A., who splashed into the water in his sandals, collected material from the bottom of the channel in nets. We searched through the stream bottom contents for macroinvertibrate life. Although Pattee creek runs through residential Missoula, it seems to be a fairly healthy stream. We found worms, snails, a large cranefly larvae, and a great number of black fly larvae.

Yesterday, Stream Team drove up to Rattlesnake creek. The water was rushing along its banks at a high velocity, due to all the recent precipitation. The swift current made macroinvertibrate collection difficult. However, after only a small mishap in which a team member’s wader filled up with water, we collected a diverse sample that included over 200 mayfly larvae, an enormous stonefly, several types of caddis, aquatic worms, blackflies, and leaches. It was fascinating to see the mayfly larvae breathe; they have visible abdominal gills that flutter gently along their sides in the water.

Despite the threatening clouds, the rain held off until we finished collecting data. After a satisfying day in the field, Stream team headed back to the 4^th street office.

Gida in Glacier

Last week, WEN joined Tony Berthelote of the Salish Kootenai College and the gidaa camp of Minnesota for 2 days in Glacier and a day of water monitoring in the Mission Mountains. The visiting gidaa camp has been coring Minnesota lakes as part of a wild rice lakes study. We met up with LacCore Scientists to core Lake Josephine at Many Glacier. Amy, one of the scientist, showed us a core they had taken from a neighboring lake which had ash from the eruption of Mount Mazama around 5700 BC (what is now Crater Lake OR). The cores recorded a sediment history up to 13,000 years old. Some things the samples are being tested for are Lead 210 and pollen. Lead in the atmosphere accumulated exponentially until it was reduced and ultimately banned in gasoline beginning in 1973. Looking at lead will aid in dating sediment. Studying pollen gives an idea of the vegetation biodiversity at the time. Students got to look at sediment under dissecting scope ride the “Purple Pony” out onto the lake and take a coring sample. Thursday, everyone enjoyed the views of glaciers close up on the bus tour of Glacier Park the Minnesota students, teachers and National Lab staff even had a shower under the Weeping Wall.Friday, WEN led students and teacher in water monitoring at Mission Creek Falls. The day was beautiful and sunny and the location was breathtaking. Students tested velocity, pH, dissolved oxygen, phosphates, nitrates, aquatic macro invertebrates, and more. The students tell it best and you can read about their study and their first impressions of Montana on their blog. You can also read a news article about the trip here. We really enjoyed meeting the amazing young gidaa camp scientist and sharing an incredible few days with them.

Flagship Electro shocking

Last weeks Flagship outing took us to Grant Creek for an afternoon of fish electro shocking with John Choka and Aubrey Benson of the USFS. Sentinel students learned all about what john does as a fisheries biologist. After a briefing on safety and equipment, we wadered up, and headed into the creek to find some fish. On our first few passes we were unable to shock any fish, and we were worried with only twenty or so minutes left that we might get skunked. Aubrey joked that when you are fishing with electricity you should almost never get skunked.

And we didn’t. The students managed to net a few brook trout that measured between four and six inches in length. John recommended we do one more pass before calling it a day, and good thing because what happened next will live in my head forever. As John passed his wand through an undercut bank we all watched as a well fed 16 inch cutthroat surfaced. I had no idea that a fish that large would be lurking just minutes from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. We admired the beauty of the native cutthroat trout before quickly releasing it back into the creek. What a day! John guessed that the native beast was a resident fish rather than migratory spawner, leaving the rest of us fisherman dreaming of mid may when all of our favorite little tributaries open for fishing.

Swan Valley and Salmon Prarie Schools field trips!

I could tell as I slid out of bed the morning of the 27th that my body was not used to getting up at 6:00. I hurried to get ready and by some magic made it to the office by 6:30, the appointed meeting time for an all day Swan Valley/ Salmon Prarie field trip. Once there I met with our two awesome volunteers Chrissy Orangio and John Hughes and after "borrowing" our VISTA Emilie's lunch we were off! It is a field trip I have been wanting to take for a while and despite the sagging eyelids I was excited. After a sleepy trip, we finally arrived at the beautiful wilderness and Swan Valley School. This was my first meeting with one of our biggest supporters, Diann Erickson who works for the Swan Ecosystems Center, and it was was every bit as motivating as I thought it would be. (This is her above picking through gunk trying to find Macroinvertebrates.) Despite the time she was up and excited about our upcoming field trip. Leading us into the small, quaint one-floor school, Diann talked us over the plan for the day and showed us an amazing display she had put together using pictures and data from the past 7 years of data we have collected with the school.We then went in to talk to the K-1st group, preparing them for the upcoming field trip. Despite their young age, they all remembered working with us in the fall and/or in previous years. Patiently they listened and answered questions.

Before we knew it we were down by the river, which was flowing very quickly, and starting with the field trip. I was leading the physical station and I had to admit, I was a bit rusty. In the moments as the kids were coming down I went over what I wanted to talk about in my head: Cloud cover, flood plain, shape of the channel, velocity, how does the areal around the stream affect it? What affects velocity? What parts of the river move faster or slower? Soon I had a group of wonderful, cooperative kids. Each took his or her turn to throw a stick, the shouters would shout start and stop as they stood on either side of a 20ft line, the timers would time, and the recorder would record, then the thrower would go trade places with someone who had a different job. We all had a lot of fun and the kids learned quite a bit.

After we finished up with that field trip we went to lunch at the local Mercantile and then Diann met us with a homeschooler she had picked up to come on our next field trip. We all drove to a small, but well-kept one-room school house entitled Salmon Prairie School. It's sole student was our other field trip attendee. We all went down to a beautiful swift flowing river that I was told was home to many Bull Trout! The two students we were working with were older and well familiar with our field trips. They knew the protocol and were basically able to run the stations by themselves. We all had fun collecting 300 bugs and participating in all the stations rather than teaching.At the end of the field trip I realized how important our work was. Without us, those kids would have been in the class all day and may not have ever learned about the beautiful rivers that surround them! We got to give them hands on science experience and re-enforced watershed ecology and science concepts year after year. I know I wish I had such an opportunity in school. Chrissy and John felt the importance of what we had done too, and on the ride home we all felt satisfied.

Milltown Dam Journeys Program

Gareth Griffes is a new WEN volunteer this spring. We were so happy to have him on two field trips this week! Gareth help in teaching the Girl Scouts about aquatic macro invertebrates and later in the week assisted on our Milltown Dam Journeys field trip with Clinton school. Read his narrative about Milltown below:

At 12:15 on Wednesday, April 21st, I was privileged to take part in a Milltown dam FT with WEN. We would be taking approx. 20 kids out to the Milltown dam bluff to learn about the life of a bull trout, the usage of the area by native peoples, some geomorphology of the area, and all about the dam restoration project.

We left on time, picking up an MCAT employee by the name of Tor who arrived as suddenly as he was given the assignment to come out and film the FT. As I had only done the stream monitoring field trips so far, what we were going to be doing was a complete mystery to me. Deb told me all about the station I was to be helping Emilie with--the bull trout obstacle course. I had to just visualize it since we wouldn’t have that much time between setting up the station and then facili tating it for the kids. It was my first time in East Missoula (having no car is no fun), and it would be my first time seeing the dam restoration. Deb filled me in all about the history of the dam and all of its problems so I wouldn't seem too out of the loop.

When we got there the heat was stifling. The kids would be getting there in 10 minutes or so, so we had just enough time to set up and read over the script a few times. Houston and I would be helping Emilie out with the bull trout game, and Deb and Christa ran the geo caching activity on the bluff.

Our station was designed to show how difficult the life of a bull trout was. The kids would try and make it through all of the obstacles without 'dying' and we would see who made it all the way through. First was the man-made turbine (jump rope). Then came the going up through the fish ladder (jumping on one foot through a path). After that the ever-popular predator alley, where classmates would throw wiffle balls at them while they dodged thr ough cones (an underhanded throw and hitting below the waist was a rule often forgotten). Through the culvert was next (originally a hula hoop, then changed to a soccer ball from Albertsons), followed by the random conditions dice roll. Finally putting an egg under the chin, walking over to the red bucket (signifying a redd), and dropping it in meant a successful spawning.

Out of our two groups around 10 percent of the kids made it through. Nothing got too out-of-hand, but our Q&A session made the students a little sugar-buzzed due to the prizes of Swedish fish (a bull trout has to eat). The kids were good for the most part and though Tor filmed all throughout the trip, the kids didn't seem to notice, which was good because seeing the 6-graders interested in learning was the goal. We finished up with both groups and then went to listen to Peter Nielsen from the Missoula Water Quality District about the dam restoration project. It was great seeing the kids' enthusiasm about their future park and all about what they would be doing there in just a few years. Their teacher brought a much needed pack of water and we finished up around 3:30. We all piled into our (thankfully) air-conditioned cars, said goodbye to Tor at the office, and parted ways from another great field Trip with WEN.

If you know of a class or community group who would be interested in learning about the Milltown Dam, please email water@montanawatershed for more information.

WEN at MUD's Earth Day

WEN joined MUD to celebrate Earth Day. The theme sustainability theme: 'Do it yourself with others' came alive with businesses and nonprofits offering their own educational activities. WEN brought aquatic macroinvertebrates from the Clark Fork River and offered aquatic macroinvert water coloring. We also had a few educational factoids on how much water it takes to produce every day consumables like meat and cotton. A few of our interns and volunteers came to help out at our table. Good music, good food, great weather, and good people! We met a some new friends and learned about the cool work our fellow nonprofits/businesses do to encourage sustainable living every day.

Amazing water facts included:

1lb of beef requires 1799 gallons of water. 3lbs of grain for feed, plus irrigation water. 16.4lbs of roughage or grasses for feed, plus irrigation water. 18.6 gallons of additional water for drinking and processing.

1 gallon of wine requires 1008 gallons of water . 63.4 gallons of water for 1 cup. Most of the water used for wine production is for growing grapes.

1 T-shirt requires 713 gallons of water 45% for irrigation 41% is rainwater that evaporates off of cotton fields 14% is for treating wastewater from fields and factories

One egg requires 53 gallons of water. Each lb of chicken requires 2 lbs of grain for feed and the associated irrigation of water

1lb of chocolate requires 3170 gallons of water. Each lb of dark chocolate is 40% cocoa paste, 20% cocoa butter. Cocoa paste has a water footprint of 3993.8 gallons of water for 1lb. Cocoa butter has a water footprint of 6091.7 gallons of water for 1lb.

To calculate your water footprint, visit these sites: Water Footprint Network; and for a more kid oriented approach: H2O Conserve

All of our facts came from National Geographics Freshwater page: Water per Pound, Drinking Water and Sanitation Quiz

They have some awesome interactive water quizes. Absolutely worth checking out!

Caution: WEN Field Trips could make you a morning person

April 8th, 2010 Sentinel High School Field Trip at the Clark Fork

From the 6:45a pick up, to loading equipment, to the essential coffee stop, to scoping out the monitoring site, to site set up, I finally realized what a beautiful morning it was sitting on a log pulling off my waders. The light pink tinged clouds, the bustle of the Clark Fork, Canada geese flying over caused an emotion to well up inside me: ‘I’m at the river and it’s a good day to be alive.’ This field trip was a little different than the others I’ve done in the past. Because of time restraints, we primarily demo’ed how to run the water quality tests instead of letting the students do them. This way we were able to focus on the main scientific ideas of water quality testing and downplay the step by step instructions of conducting the tests. In addition to dissolved oxygen, we showed students how to test for nitrates and phosphates and more importantly, why we test and what would cause detectable traces of the substances to be there. Eutrophication was one of the main ideas in the lesson. Having done some undergraduate research on aquatic plant cover in a stream recovering from eutrophication, I have a vested interest in the subject. The site I studied during my undergraduate was a spring fed calcium carbonate stream recovering from point source pollution. As a student, eutrophication can be a tricky concept to understand. When students are asked about contributors of dissolved oxygen, plants are a common guess, so it is essential to clarify the overall effects. Aside from the outcome eutrophication has on DO levels, I like to mention the effect it has of lowering aquatic plant diversity. Massive algal blooms set off a competition for sunlight that shut out submergent plants. This was evident in the research I did as watercress (an emergent plant) and filamentous algae dominated the stream before recovery.

WEN volunteer Taylor Wilcox joined us for the second half of the field trip to lead the chem station. As the second group of students filed down to the river, the clouds began to darken and the wind kicked up. Before we could get through our second station, the sky opened up on us with a nice dose of cold rain, when it noticed that we weren’t budging, it changed to graupel-like snow, then gave up and went back to rain. The students maintained a level of enthusiasm, but we were all more than glad to finish and get out of the cold.

Emilie Kohler is an AmeriCorps*VISTA Development Assistant for Watershed Education Network. She has been working with WEN since July 2009.