Week 2: Making a
Difference in Your Watershed
Activities at home:
Neighborhood clean-up, Bug Hunt, and Message in a Bottle (i.e. pen pal with
another camper)
What an amazing group of campers! They ruled the “trash mob”
challenge and went out to make a difference by cleaning up their neighborhood.
Many of the campers took advantage of being in a buggy place
to explore bugs for the Bug Hunt. The Roly Poly discovery was my personal favorite.
Who knew they were basically terrestrial shrimp?
The last activity was writing a letter to another camper.
Cultivating a new friendship through letter writing was our environmentally
responsible way of sending a “message in a bottle”.
Highlights during our
virtual camp session:
We toured a trash barge on the Mississippi River. This was
the highlight of the entire month for many campers! Rachel with Living Lands and Waters showed
us around and we saw that one barge is for tires, one for scrap metal, and one
just for trash. It was impressive and monumentally sad to see that so much
garbage is in our rivers. We also got to see their toy collection and the
creepy doll fence.
Another highlight was exploring real messages in bottles. Missouri
River Relief has found many over the years. Campers got to choose which bottles
to explore. It seems many are written as blessings for others and wishes for
good fortune.
Photos from week 2:
Rachel from Living Lands and Waters visiting via Zoom.
Living Lands and Waters Trash Barge!
Rachel and Chad
transporting the trash from the river to the barge.
Rachel’s favorite
river find.
Portraits of our Watershed Expedition Trash Heroes:
Trash Heroes every one of them!
Bug Hunt fun!
Week 3: Telling the
Story of Your Watershed
Activities at home:
Smoosh Book, Water Coloring, and Found Object Art
Campers got to create their own Smoosh Books. With just one
piece of paper, campers made a 6 page book using Kirigami, the Japanese art of
folding and cutting paper. These books were then used as journals.
Campers were also given supplies to create a watercolor that
tells a story in their watershed. The results were so creative!
Last but not least campers learned about environmental
artists and how they often work in harmony with the natural environment by using
materials such as leaves, flowers, branches, soil, sand, stone and water. By
doing so artists often change the way we view the environment and help us
rethink how to "see" the world around us. Get ready to be amazed by
what the campers created!
Highlights during our
virtual camp session:
Glass whisperer Libby Reuter gave us a tour of her studio
and introduced us to her watershed stories called Watershed Cairns. Each cairn,
made from repurposed glass, is used to mark and visually connect people, land and
water, providing an opening for community discussion about fresh water. Campers were then encouraged to tell their
watershed story through a variety of artistic mediums including journaling in
their smoosh book, water coloring and found object art. Evidence of how Libby
inspired our campers can be seen below!
Photos from week 3:
Watershed Cairns studio tour! Libby Reuter explained her process;
both the skills needed to create the cairns and her inspiration. If you are
curious to see photos of the cairns taken by Joshua Rowan visit https://www.watershedcairns.com.
Telling Watershed Stories through watercolors:
Found Object Art Masterpieces:
Week 4: Connecting
Others to Your Watershed
Activity at home:
Watershed Project
The watershed project activity allowed campers to synthesize
everything they had experienced during camp. Over the past few weeks they had
explored their watershed, completed a neighborhood clean-up to make a
difference, and learned ways to use art to tell stories. Now they get to pick
an issue they care about and create a project that explores that issue using
any medium and then share it with other campers. Many campers mentioned that
creating this project and sharing it was their favorite part of the entire
month! Campers made posters, videos, and books using computers or paint to
create impressive educational materials and artwork!
Highlights during our
virtual camp session:
Sharing the watershed projects was the best! So many issues
represented and so many creative ways to raise awareness about each issue. So
proud of every camper!
Photos from week 4:
Watershed Projects:
Jaron participated in the Flat Branch Creek community
clean-up. His issue was raising awareness about trash in our creeks and his
message was that trash is bad for animals.
Jessie created a photo collage to document trash in the
Rocky Fork watershed.
Fox created stencils, sprayed a storm drain and raised
awareness about not dumping chemicals in storm drains since they lead directly
to creeks!
Tobias created a watershed education comic about stream
pollution issues.
Tucker created a news flash video explaining reasons to stop
littering. The script is paraphrased: “Reason #1 litter goes into water, water
gets dirty, it affects every single life form on earth. Reason #2 dirty water
can make us sick. Tip #1 limit trash on roads which will then limit trash that
gets in our water. Tip #2 instead of littering, throw your trash in the garbage
can. If it won’t fit in the garbage can, then just drive it over to the dump.” This
image is a screenshot from his video.
Linus documented trash along the Hinkson creek at a golf
course through a video mockumentary (he pretends to be David Attenborough).
Linus suggests putting more trash cans along the trails at the golf course (he
documented only one) and handing out trash bags to golfers.
Leo created a poignant 1 minute video about her observation
of the power of water to carry rocks in Little Bonne Femme Creek. Here is a
quote from her video: “When you’re thinking about water washing things away, if
it can carry rocks, what else can it carry? Pesticides? Trash? Pollution? If it’s
bothering me, how is it affecting them?”
More Highlights from
our virtual camp session!
Campers also created a Diamante Group Poem. Each session
created a unique poem:
Crawdad’s
(Thursday AM) Camp Poem:
Stream
small, wet
running, flowing, walking
minnows, crawdads, plants, pools
scuttling, pooling, rocking
large, streams
Missouri River
Mussel’s (Thursday PM) Camp Poem:
Stream
bubbly, sparkly
glistening, running, meandering
life, light, lakes,
abundance
lilting, eating, leaking
large, luscious,
Missouri River
Frog’s (Friday AM) Camp Poem:
Stream
fast, cold
flowing, rising, running
forest, rainforest, mountains, swamp
bubbling, gushing, fishing
slimy, smooth
Missouri River
Blue Heron’s (Friday PM) Camp Poem:
Stream
stinky, extreme
spelunking, speeding, falling
bark, nose, tree, litter
glittering, dying, sparkling
sticky, shpadoinkle!
Missouri River
And last but not least,
as a warm up for writing the poems, campers were asked to name as many places as
possible where water could collect in a watershed.
Collectively, they were able
to name 60 places!!!!!
1.
Creek
2.
Pond
3.
Lake
4.
Street gutter
5.
Ocean
6.
Puddles
7.
Rivers
8.
Riverbanks
9.
Fields
10.
Valley
11.
Campfire ring
12.
Trash cans
13.
Rain garden
14.
Hole
15.
Trench
16.
Storm Drain
17.
Sewer
18.
Pipes
19.
Sinkhole
20. Stream
21.
Sidewalk
22.
Waterfall
23.
Cave
24. Reservoir
25.
Leaves
26. Horse
trough
27.
Tributaries
28. House
gutter
29. Aquifer
30. Spring
31.
Glaciers
32.
Snow
33. Floodplain
34. Wetland
35. Marsh
36. Bayou
37.
Delta
38. Bog
39. Fen
40. Waterfall
41.
Sea
42. Hot
spring
43. Geyser
44. Icicles
45. Well
46. Ravine
47. Canyon
48. Plants
49. Clouds
50. Channels
51.
Oasis
52.
Peninsula
53. Wood
cracks
54. Plant
pots
55. Rocks
56. Volcano
steam
57.
Skin
58. Hair
59. Pool
60. Box
Amazing!
Thank you campers for making our first Watershed Expeditions a blast!
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