Uffda!

Hi there. I hope everyone is having a good week. Looks like the weekend was the worst of my cold but I'm still carrying a scratchy throat/cough with me. This week WR has been taken over my 7th graders, and boy are they different from 4th graders! The school brought 380 people (this is 18 over capacity so there are mattresses on the floors of some of the rooms), and they were crazy hyper when they first got here Monday. They have since calmed down thankfully. This week I am being trained in to teach rock climbing. Yesterday I observed someone, tomorrow I will teach while being observed, and then I will be able to teach solo. I guess they're concerned about kids falling off the wall...Actually so am I since I am not a climber. 

This first photo is an early morning photo from last week of some fog rolling down into the valley, but I just wanted to show the view of the valley. This morning I taught Stream Study and it rocked! So I start my class overlooking this view so they can get a good view of WR and of Sawmill Creek. My ILFers will love this - While we are looking at over the valley I introduce the idea of a watershed and watershed address. I most definitely used the hand/cup/where would the drop of water go demo-it worked great. We talked about watershed addresses- if you're curious mine is Sawmill Creek>Baptism River>Lake Superior. Then we started our 20 min hike down to our classroom which is the tiny building in the back of the next photo. And there's a beaver lodge :)

So we spend some time inside and I demo all the tests we're going to do. Physical (Temperatures, Habitat types, Velocity/Volume), Chemical (Dissolved Oxygen and pH), and Biological (catch critters!) are the tests.  Then they split into groups and do everything at sites like the one shown below. Nice huh? 

I run like a maniac between them all to help where needed. They caught some fun stuff today - minnows, dragonfly larva, damselfly larva, giant water beetle, leech, and of course crawfish. They love it, and we do a group show and tell at the end. Then back to the classroom to compare data, talk about what it all means, and decide if Sawmill Creek is healthy or not - it most definitely is.  I brought it back round to the watershed concept, had them compare to water bodies in their area, what can they do to keep water clean. Then I ship them back to top of the ridge with their chaperones, clean up, then struggle back up myself. A big part of this hike is the Stairs of Health and Happiness or as the kids call them the Stairs of Death-photo below isn't even half of them. Literally it's impossible. They're not getting any easier either. Somewhere along the way, us Minnesotans are bound to say Uffda! Ok whatever I'm not a Minnesotan-but I still want to say Uffda!