Category — Wakarusa Corridor

Wednesday Twitter-ish

Site visit to Baker Wetland, the rails-to-trails stormwater retention wetland, and Edgewood Park (not a wetland but some darn pretty soil with a stream and a grove of trees). Lots of turtles, frogs, birds, ducks, & every one of them has an attitude right now!

Wetland Wednesdays -Alison Reber

With help from the Roger Hill Volunteer Center and the Youth Volunteer Council, students enrolled in the CJHS EDGE Program have spent the last 2 Wednesdays working on wetland projects.

Last week they helped finish about 125 Wetland Learners booklets. It was slow going but we had a wonderful time visiting about the life of a junior high student. They had a good time relaying the Art for the Sky / Regal fritillary project experience.

Also, my daughter Tabitha came along to get a smidge-a-bit of the Central experience. One of the students, Sam, gave us a grand tour of my old alma mater. I’m not sure if she believed me when I said my sister, my mother and both my grandmothers had also gone to school there. (I’m only a little heart-sick that Tabby’s hell-bent on going to West where her Daddy and Uncle Rich and my father - her grandfather went to school.)

Yesterday we first went to Baker Wetland to walk through the boardwalk so they could get the feel for what the Wetland Learners would do with the booklets. Then, surprise of surprises! We got to where Rex usually does his macroinvertebrate gig and Sam goes: “I came out here with my class last year and there was this guy in the water and we had to get in and find BUGS!” I prompted, “Like what?” and she said “Like frogs and tadpoles, and beetles and stuff…” A little sketchy but we’ll take it - Congratulations - our first documented Wetland Learners play-it-forward peer-to-peer teaching. I so love it when that happens. sigh.

Next we went over to the stormwater retention area south of Douglas County Works east of Haskell University, adjacent to the Rails to Trails trail. We trekked down to the wetland area and up the berm so we could look down and across the basin (sometimes 2-dimensional words are too pale for this 3-dimensional world). The kids were surprised because it’s not like anybody guess there’s a squiggly channel of water on the other side of what appears to be a mound of mud with some tree seedlings here and there. However, it wasn’t the frogs, or the turtles, ducks, mud, etc… that really grabbed their attention. It was the cows. Just beyond the retention area, there was a pasture with a handful of cows grubbing down on what looked like absolutely divine grass. The stormy sky was undercut by late afternoon sunlight; the grass looked like cake icing green.

We walked a bit farther down the trail so I could show them the backside of a new building/walled parking area - something… The important thing was to show them the water leaving the wetland area becomes a stream but then dwindles back to a wetland and then merges with another drainage ditch to be a stream again, etc… Wetlands and streams aren’t mutally exclusive. The other big thing was to point out the soil where the construction took place. Its a nasty yellow brown. Trash in streams is visually disturbing but the sediment in the stream is smothering. My mini-monologue was disrupted by a chorus frog jumping from said sediment filled puddle to another puddle. The possum footprint didn’t help my case either. I think they more or less got the dirt on dirt - it’s all dirt, baby! Soils age and change. That’s important because when we’re talking about wetland restoration and wetland construction the soils dictate everything.

The kids took some pictures - check them out over at flickr but be patient - I haven’t cleaned them up at all yet. Enjoy….

Project Updates:~> Kaw Valley Voices - The interviews were recorded and transcribed between 1996 and 2003. A traveling display was developed and used during KVHA’s ‘96 Rollin’ Down the River Festival. We’re ready to digitally produce the materials.

~> River Roots series - Catfish Cookies was published as an extension of Kaw Valley Voices with the intention of publishing additional books that blend creative writing short stories with river centered environmental history.

~> Poetry Series - In January we launched a series of poetry readings and discussions to look at environmental futures from a past, present, and future perspective. The readings are being video and audio recorded.~> Wetland Learners video - We’re also working on producing a short video to document Wetland Learners next spring.

~> Special Summer Event - Junish? The idea is to have a showing of the video and to showcase some of the other projects that have happened this year. This is intended to be a fundraising celebration - maybe some kind of an auction, music, some food…

~> River of Words - Next fall we should be ready to introduce a homespun version of the River of Words program as a Wetland Learners extension.

~> Wings Over the Wakarusa - With any luck we’ll be able to incorporate some of the above in a second River Roots book called “Wings Over the Wakarusa”. Ideally we’ll be ready to go to print in September so it’s ready for Christmas ‘08.

School: Woodlawn

Teacher:

School: Kennedy

Teacher: Sally Davis

Recently KVHA worked with several partners to launch a project called “Wetland Learners“.

Field trips are provided for 6th graders in the Lawrence area. The trips are facilitated community and partner volunteers as well as Wetland Learner Interns.

Post-secondary students in a range of disciplines are recruited for internships.

There’s more pictures of Wetland Learner events at flickr.

Note: In 2008, KVHA’s WRAPS group approved $40,000 in funding to KDWP for the completion of the Elk Creek Wetland area. See Elk Creek Page

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Karrey Britt and a Channel 6 news crew tagged along on Hillcrest Elementary School’s field trip in October. The coverage was extremely well done. Enjoy!

Channel 6 News Lawrence

http://media.6newslawrence.com/video/2007/10/26/wetlands.mov

On October 27th volunteers from all over the watershed took part in Make a Difference Day -”America’s largest day of volunteering”. Activities in the Clinton Lake area were organized by the Roger Hill Volunteer Center.

* Students from KU’s Center for Community Outreach and KU Marketing Club were organized to do a shoreline clean up and riparian zone tree nut planting at Coon Creek.

* Volunteers for the Kansas Trails Council worked on trails in Camp Ground #1 in the Clinton Lake State Park.

Make A Difference Day

Activity-Based Consequential Learning (by doing!)

At Pendleton’s Market “Pollination Station” celebration of crop artist Stan Herd’s USPS-66044 Swallowtail Stamp, we found a Freedom’s Frontier prescription (Rx) for Wes Jackson’s Eco-Futures description (Dx) of “vision without sight/site.” WakarUSAWatershedPollinationStation Pix

- Boardmember Bob Burkhart

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Pendleton’s Market Map to Pendleton’s
1446 E. 1850 Rd., Lawrence, KS 66046 Phone: 785-843-1409

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