Job Point Education Program - May 23, 2018

By: Claire Hassler, Missouri River Relief

Well, that’s a wrap on our “Stewardship on the Missouri River” education program! Missouri River Relief (MRR) spent the whole day at Katfish Katy’s in Huntsdale, Missouri working with AmeriCorps members from Youth Build and Job Point. The members were young adults, ages 16 to 24, from St. Louis, Kansas City, and Columbia, Missouri. They investigated the river at stations on land and then worked together in service of the Missouri River by picking up trash.

Morning Welcome and Introduction to the Missouri River

For this education program, we partnered with Job Point, which is an employment center that helps people with career planning and job placement assistance. Job Point was an excellent partner and this program wouldn’t have been possible without them. Thank you Job Point!

We started off the day by introducing the students to the Missouri River, Missouri River Relief, and Job Point. We were also grateful to have Senator Blunt’s Community Liaison Ailey Pope and the Boone County Presiding Commissioner Dan Atwill join the education program and give words of support.

Words of support and encouragement from Senator Blunt's Community Liaison

There were about 60 students at this program. We split them into two groups, 30 in each, because the day was divided into two segments: On the Water and On the Land.

On the Land
For one portion of the day, students rotated through three stations on land to learn more about the longest river in North America. The first On the Land station was called "We All Live Downstream." It was a stream table model of the Missouri River put on by Boone County Storm Water Education.

Hands-on and minds-on while learning how the river has changed over time 

Theresa Thomas and Lynne Hooper presented and instructed the students. They taught participants about how stormwater becomes contaminated and also how best management practices improve the quality and reduce the quantity of stormwater that enters the Missouri River.

Studying the kinds of bugs that live on the Missouri River

The second land station was called "Through the Eyes of a Scientist" and it was all about using microscopes to investigate macroinvertebrates that live in the Missouri River.  Amy Meier and Lily Kennedy with the Missouri Department of Conservation guided the students with the microscopes and showed them all kinds of bugs that live on the Missouri River. They taught participants about adaptations and assessing the quality of a stream site based on the macroinvertebrates that live there.

Station three on the land was a guided bird observation hike hosted by Paige Witek with the Missouri River Bird Observatory. Paige taught the students how to use binoculars and showed them bird skull replicas of species that live along the Missouri River. 

Giving pointers on how to identify the difference on species of hawks

On the hike, participants explored the natural history and adaptations of birds that live along the river and got to practice finding the moving birds in their binoculars. After a lunch break, the On the Land group and On the Water group switched places.

On the Water

After a safety talk and getting fitted for life jackets, participants headed out onto the river! MRR had three boats on the water. 

For a lot of AmeriCorps members, it was their first time on the Missouri River. 

Our experienced boat captains and deckhands gave the students a guided tour, pointing out an eagle’s nest as they passed it and sharing the history of the river. 

Looking in all the right places for river trash

Enjoying the river breeze with beautiful views of the bluffs 

Some boats also stopped along the way to pick up trash. Here is the trash tally of what they found:

• 21 bags of trash!
• 55 gallon drum
•   2 large Styrofoam chunks
• 2 Large plastic tubs
• Cattle feeding tub
•  Large cooler (coffin cooler)
• Plastic tool box
• Large cooler
• 3 tires on rim
• Box tv
• Fridge door

For many students, it was their first time out on the river. Because of this, a lot of growth happened.

At the end of the day as part of our group reflection, we did a whip around activity. The students stood in a giant circle and went around one by one, saying one word they used to describe the Missouri River before today’s program and one word to describe it after today’s program. 

Here are some things the students said: 

• Before / After:
• Big / beautiful
• Trashy / cool
• Watery / peaceful
• Dirty / relaxing
• Gross / refreshing
• Dirty / fun
• Scary / chill
• Dirty / serene
• Big / tranquil

The day was hot, but our students and presenters were champions and finished the day with smiles on their faces and chilled towels on their heads!

A lot of people helped make this program happen. A big thank you to our experienced boat drivers and deckhands: Steve Schnarr, Kevin Tosie, Jeff Boot Barrow, Patty Farrar, Steve Sadich, and Mike Crist. And our amazing presenters included Amy Meier, and Lily Kennedy with the Missouri Department of Conservation, Theresa Thomas and Lynne Hooper from Boone County Stormwater and Paige Witek from the Missouri RiverBird Observatory.

If you would like to learn more about MRR education programs, please contact Education Director Kristen Schulte at kristen@riverrelief.org, and check out our education program page!

Our Mari-Osa Story (so far)

Mari-Osa Dump, June 2007, before we started - photo by Racin' Dave

Mari-Osa Dump Clean-up (Take Three)
Mari-Osa Public Access on the Osage River
March 6th & 7th, 2010

This has been our third year returning to the Mari-Osa Delta for a river clean-up. What spawned this tradition was a phone call from our friend Jeff Finley of the US Fish & Wildlife Service back in 2007. We were doing a clean-up further down the Osage River and he mentioned that we should go upstream and check out a legendary dumpsite near the MariOsa ramp. After we wrapped up the clean-up, Racin’ Dave and Anthony headed up to scout the dump. We’d never seen anything like it.

For a hundred years, people had been dumping their garbage off the top of a beautiful bluff overlooking the Osage. The refuse had spilled all the way to the river. On the right are a couple pictures Racin’ took that day. The dump was just upstream and across the river from the MariOsa Boat Ramp, so logistically it seemed like an ideal location to take on a massive dump like this.


2008

The first year, 2008, we worked for a day and a half on the site. As soon as volunteers arrived at the site, boats began filling with huge appliances and car parts. We filled four scrap metal rolloffs that day and one landfill rolloff. Almost 19 tons of garbage!
Click here for more details of the first Mari-Osa event...
http://www.riverrelief.org/event/mari-osa-dump-08/

2009
The big stuff was mostly gone, so we needed a new strategy to get stuff safely down the hill. Our Captain John Breyfogle reclaimed a 4’x20’ plastic culvert that washed up on his Missouri River beach, cut it into pieces, then reassembled it at the dump to serve as a “trash flume”. The toughest bunch of volunteers I’ve ever seen worked on the hill, and six other dump sites in the area. Over 13.1 tons of junk were removed that day.
http://www.riverrelief.org/event/mari-osa-dump-part-2/

and you really need to see the Trash Flume video...
http://www.youtube.com/user/rivertrash1875#p/a/u/0/2fzwTeAijPQ

2010
Because most of the auxiliary dumps were taken care of in 2009, we decided to focus more exclusively on the dump. The only advertisement we did was contacting folks that worked on the site last year. Still, over 130 volunteers worked on this clean-up – AWESOME! Over 12 tons of junk removed from the riverside in one day!

Summer Fun!

by Melanie Cheney
Americorps Stream Team Assistant
Missouri River Relief

Well June was packed full with fun summertime events. The weather was fine & the highlights are many. My favorite ed event was with hundred's of cub scouts at our local city park, Stephens Lake. Groups of 20 would come through our booth every hour on the hour, for 8 hours! It was such a pleasure to work and play with these kids, they were so intelligent & well behaved! Ann Koenig (Forrester for MDC) plays the Macro-Mayem game with the scouts

Many of them were definitely "gifted" and sometimes my lecture on water quality and Stream Teams would get turned around into Q & A's, ranging from scientists studying parasitic twins to why old people shrink, after that last one, I quickly saw that we were getting way off track & returned to our discussion on macro-invertebrates! The next day, Steve & I were off to celebrate Stream Team's 20th anniversary down in Waynesville! We participated in a float on the Big Piney, mingled with fellow stream teamers, listened to old time bluegrass, ate BBQ & together shared our fondest memories during a heartwarming documentary on the program and it's success'. Here's a link to watch the 20th anniversary documentary: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=02D5F418F1519949 Steve & I on our float (top)

A beautiful mayfly I rescued out of the water and set to dry on my paddle (bottom)

On Sunday, I attended some really great workshops on terrestrial insects and fly fishing. It was a blast!

Lastly, Missouri River Relief ended June with a big splash in Sioux City, IA. For the second year in a row, we helped local Siouxlanders clean-up their stretch of river. There wasn't all that much trash to be had, but the experience of working with the "Sioux Crew" was priceless. We even got to take a tour of a wastewater treatment plant! Check out over a hundred photos we are posting of this event on our Flickr page http://www.flickr.com/photos/8478409@N03/. What a great month it has been, Missouri's streams & rivers have once again left me full, yet ready for more.

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