If you saw students down at the Slocan River this spring, nets in hand, getting their feet wet, learning about water quality and the aquatic insects, then you were seeing kids in action, connecting to and discovering their local watershed.
This May and June, the Grade 6-8 science students from WE Graham Community School in Slocan and the Grade 8 students from Mt. Sentinel Secondary School in South Slocan both participated in Know Your Watershed, a program of the Columbia Basin Trust, administered and managed by Wildsight.
Understanding the quality of their river by doing chemical water tests such as pH, nitrate, phosphate, dissolved oxygen and turbidity, as well as looking at the diversity and sheer number of aquatic insects, has created awareness and turned the students into committed advocates and ambassadors of the Slocan River.
To better protect their watershed, the students from both communities engaged in a Student Action Project, the Pack-In Pack-Out River Bag project, in conjunction with the Green Team and the Global Perspectives class from Mt. Sentinel Secondary School.
