Students explore solutions to global issues
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A new generation is learning to keep Flathead Lake pristine and the entire watershed clean. Third-grade students from Linderman Elementary School spent Thursday cycling through hands-on educational stations at the Yellow Bay Biological Center in the “Becoming Watershed Citizens” Course. Developed by the Flathead Lakers, the field day helps children understand that choices they’ll make in the future can affect the quality of everyone’s water. The event follows up a month-long curriculum in the classroom, so by the time the students arrive at the bay, they know a mayfly from a caddis. “Then they get their hands dirty here,” Flathead Laker Hilary Devlin said. The students didn’t seem to mind as they dug through slit and mud to find and identify leeches and other aquatic organisms. The sampling of aquatic invertebrates were snagged from a stream by University of Montana grad student Jeff Strait, who reinforced the difference between caddis fly, a stone fly and a mayfly. The presence of these organisms are indicators of quality streams and rivers, he said, and an entire watershed that’s “cold, clear and connected.” At the watershed station, tabletop models of neighborhoods illustrated how pollution from fertilizers, pesticides, sewage and industrial plants can all end up in the water.
