Camp turns to classroom for future watershed stewards
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Watershed camp for kids going into fourth or fifth grade covers water “from the mountains to the sewers,” according to Melissa Bahr, one of the camp directors.
Bahr, a Polson educator who used to teach in St. Ignatius, and Valerie Umphrey, a Mission teacher, have offered the camp for St. Ignatius students for eight years. The camp averages 20 to 25 kids, Umphrey said. This year campers attended from June 28 to July 8.
“Basically we want the kids to be more observant, introduced to and comfortable with the aspects of our watershed — the hiking, the animals, the plants,” Umphrey said.
“The goal of the camp,” Bahr said, “ is providing environmental stewardship and an appreciation of where we live.”
Camp activities included each student building an ice dam and then “flooding” the dam with a hose to see if it would hold and the popular boat races on the canal. Campers build their boats at home, Umphrey said. Sailboats and fishing boats competed with double-decker party boats and even a welded aluminum boat made by one camper and his family.
The kids also have a frozen t-shirt contest, where the first student to thaw out his or her shirt and put in on wins. Campers also use frozen ice balloons, tools and household chemicals, such as vinegar and baking soda, to break down the ice.
Days at watershed camp are full, running from 9 a.m. to 2 or 3 p.m. In addition to hands-on activities, the campers visited the Clark Fork River, the Jocko River, Mission Creek, the Flathead River, Mission Falls, Kerr Dam and Blue Bay as well as the city water and sewers in St. Ignatius and the National Bison Range.
Each field trip taught the kids about some facet of the local watershed. For instance, to discover the agricultural uses of water, the camp visited an Amish farming family, the Millers, near St. Ignatius.
At the Bison Range, Dr. Gordon Warrington, a soil physicist, talked to the kids about glacial lake Missoula.
At every location the kids tested the water for dissolved oxygen, ph, turbidity and temperature and recorded the results. Bahr said all the students know how to use the water test kit.
Not only did the kids learn a lot about water but they learned in a fun way. At Blue Bay the students fished after they tested the water. The trip to Mission Dam had time scheduled in for swimming.
When the camp visited Kerr Dam, Rich Bonnes and Bill Ludwick, Operations and Maintenance staffers explained Kerr Dam’s powerhouse and turbine in a way fourth and fifth graders could understand.
“Kerr Dam supplies electricity to all our cities and towns,” Ludwick said. “How much snow we get impacts how much electricity we can generate.
To help put the amount of water spilling over Kerr Dam into perspective for the kids, Ludwick said, “One cubic foot of water is about the size of a basketball so there are about 29,000 basketballs going by in one minute.”
After a look at the generator in action and an actual 60-ton turbine, the students prepared to brave the waters of the Flathead River on a raft trip to Buffalo Bridge.
As he was being buckled into his life vest, camper Afton Brander, 9, said his favorite part of the camp was swimming at Mission Dam. He also knew water in Flathead Lake came from the mountains in Glacier National Park. Leila Marsha, 10, saw a bear at the Bison Range. She enjoyed the boat races and said her ice dam held up well. Shaelynn Walks Over Ice, 10, liked Kerr Dam and explained the water looks green because it’s glacial water.
Hearing her students talk about water, Bahr remembered the raft trip to Buffalo Bridge the first year of the camp. Bahr said the kids were concerned when the rafts were taken out of the water at Buffalo Bridge; they thought the river would loop around like the rides in an amusement park. Bahr and Umphrey decided right then they needed to stress basic water facts, such as water flows downhill.
As well as water facts, Bahr and Umphrey emphasize no trace camping and hiking. The kids quickly learn and take pride in leaving a place as pristine as when they arrived.
“We always come home with beer cans on the bus,” Umphrey said, from cleaning up other people’s mess.
Bahr said some campers might not get an opportunity to go rafting or hiking to Mission Falls so watershed camp impacts them.
Bahr and Umphrey sneak in a little career planning, too. They ask guest speakers and workers, such as rafting guides, plant workers, soil physicists, wildlife biologists, hydrologists and operations staff, at all the areas they visit about job specifics, schooling required and how they got interested in their job.
"We want the students to have an appreciation of where they come from. We have this great place we get to live, and their job is to take care of it as well as ours, “ Bahr explained.
