CAMN using their skills Thursday, October 23, 2008

October 10th – Robinson School group, 150 6th graders, Need CAMN help with the compass course, teaching about the ecology and health of the Little Maumelle, and teaching kids how to paddle a canoe.

Any takers?

Those of us who were free that day showed up. Bill Toland and Bert Turner taught the compass course and nobody got lost.

George Lauster and Martha Bowden helped them scoop up macroinvertebrates when a few kids decided they were going to swim like the fish.

Anne Massey and Ann Owen taught paddling and canoe safety. Ann Owen was dumped into the water and had to rescue a canoe that got too far down stream. Too bad we didn’t get pictures of that. We had a few laughs about our day as we sat down for lunch.

Trash Clean Up Sunday, September 28, 2008

Friday, Anne Massey, Bert Turner and I met at the Big Dam Bridge and led a group of City Year Corps throughout the River Trail. Let me tell you, walking and picking up trash and talking with these kids was a lot of fun. They are a good group of trash finders and made a huge difference in the park area.

Saturday, six Master Naturalists (Anne Massey, Ann Owen, Katherine Becker, Bill Toland, Tom Neale and I) met at PMSP. The people that came were assigned and as Team Leaders we set off with gloves, bags, and water. We were ready for TRASH!

The park was amazingly clean. My group of cub scouts took the Arboratum Trail. Since there wasn’t much trash to pick up, we picked up sticks and showed the kids as much nature as we could find and ID. After hours of walking in the woods, we rounded up the cub scouts and headed back to the picnic area for delicious food. After some short talks about what the park looks like in 1975 and how far it has come, we all received our patches. Thanks to all the volunteers who gave up their Saturday morning to help clean up PMSP.

Tree and Plant ID class helps Master Naturalists Thursday, September 25, 2008

Thank you Dr. Sundell for a great outdoor class on native plants. Your expertise, added to the knowledge that others had, made for a very interesting morning. It is always fun learning in an outdoor environment. We slapped our way along the Kingfisher Trail, enjoying each others company and gleaning much info. If anyone wants to know what we were wearing that day, we named our scent “Ode to Deet.” I took pages of notes and can’t wait to return to check out my memory. See the flickr photo album to remind you of some of the things we talked about.

A typical River Ecology session by Master Naturalist Bill Toland Tuesday, August 5, 2008

The last interesting group was from Abilene, TX. High school seniors looking at colleges in AR. I did a River Ecology session one afternoon for the group of about 35. As soon as they got off the bus they needed to use the restrooms at the picnic area of PMSP. Guess what? The restrooms were closed due to no water! And no toilet paper on the bus (tough luck for the ladies). The guys used the woods and the ladies fended for themselves.

We found lots of macroinvertebrates (everyone got wet) and were able to do four or five of the chemical analysis of the water.

After three hours their day was over.…wet, exhausted, bug bites, nerves frayed from false snake sightings, lots of pictures but much more knowledgeable about how to determine water quality level.

Hopefully a good memory of PMSP also.