Copyright Coeur d'Alene Press
It’s a cool fall morning and I’m standing at the intersection of Burnt Cabin and Ohio Match roads waiting for a busload of Venture Academy students to arrive. While I wait here with my colleagues, travelers stop and ask why we have dozens of pairs of rubber boots lined up next to our vehicles. We tell them about the incoming students and the work they are about to do and they head down the road with smiles on their faces. It may sound strange to expect teenagers to show up at this juncture in the Coeur d’Alene National Forest, but it’s perfectly natural. It’s natural because we are waiting in the forest for the Venture bus so we, the Confluence Project instructors, can walk these young scientists through the water quality field experience. I’ve been all over the Idaho Panhandle with several dedicated volunteers in the last month, teaching water quality lessons to high school students. The Confluence Project advisers and volunteers are helping these students understand how to test the water quality. Using scientific tools, the water bodies are examined to determine the habitat conditions and overall health for aquatic species (not for drinking water purposes). This year, we are helping science classes from Sandpoint to Moscow and from Post Falls to Wallace. The Confluence Project, coordinated out of The University of Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene Center, provides equipment like waders or rubber boots, pH strips, dissolved oxygen tests and bug nets while teachers use coordinated lessons to reinforce the field experience. The Confluence Project has been offering this experience to area schools since 2011; it’s been described as the most substantial supplemental education program of high school students in North Idaho. This year, we’ve had some phenomenal experiences with students, teachers and volunteers. One of the first experiential days this fall, I had the privilege to meet a volunteer at Kellogg High School who had a student in the program last year. This parent was so impressed with what his child learned through experiential education last year that he decided to help this year, even though his daughter is no longer in the class. He told us that he enjoyed seeing teens get excited about science because of these experiences. I heard the same from volunteers and teachers all month. One way the students learn to test water quality is by discovering what “bugs” are in the creek or river (AKA aquatic macroinvertebrates). It’s rewarding to watch high school students as they wait with anticipation to see if they can identify a stonefly or caddis larva. I recently heard a recommendation that if you don’t share your knowledge with the community, then a part of you dies and a part of your community dies. The Confluence Project is sharing the water knowledge of a community of volunteers with young aspiring scientists and these young scientists are being equipped to perpetuate a legacy of clean, cold, healthy water for everyone in North Idaho and beyond. It doesn’t matter if I’m waiting in the cool mornings at Hayden Creek, in Corbin Park or at Round Lake State Park; I’m willing to wait with rubber boots and dissolved oxygen kits so I can pass on the excitement of scientific inquiry to these exceptional young people. Would you like to experience the joy of seeing high school students in the moment of discovery? The Confluence Project can use more volunteers for the water quality experience in the fall, snow science in February or at the Youth Water Summit in May. More information can be found on the website: https://iwrri.uidaho.edu/education-confluence/
