|
Become a friend of the Klamath Bucket Brigade All donations are tax deductible |
|
This Website is Dedicated to Alvin Alexander Cheyne January 10, 1921 - June 17, 2005 |
In
the field trip
|
By Adam
Madison
Triplicate
staff writer
On Oct.
5-7, eight students from the Academy of Natural Resources (ANR) program
at DNHS and two teachers, spent a weekend learning about the issues of
the river and watershed.
"The
river runs the whole gamut of natural resource issues," said Joe
Gillespie,
ANR
teacher Thom O' Connor said he wanted to show his students "what
the river provides and how we're going to replenish it."
The
field trip was by raft, an element that Gillespie thought would appeal
to students more than a school bus.
"I
thought it would be very interesting to kick off the trip with a ...
rafting trip that would stimulate the kids interest," Gillespie
said.
He
started the Klamath River Watershed Study Project because of the variety
of issues surrounding the watershed.
"Especially
because the Klamath is right here in our community," Gillespie
said.
O'Conner
added, "Right now it's to wake them up as to what is around them.
We want to make sure they have a background. It's an overview of natural
resources and what they're about."
Students
had first-hand experience learning about Klamath watershed issues and
how decisions made affect the communities and people that live in the
area.
Gillespie
said the watershed involves "several tribes, tribal fisherman,
logging, mining, commercial fishing—anything that has impacted the
river."
Karuk
tribal members from the fisheries program provided a few lessons on what
they were doing to track Coho salmon, before the fish reach the river.
"Students
injected the salmon with tags to track where they go before they hit the
ocean," Gillespie said.
The
barcode was jotted down, then injected into the fish just underneath the
skin of their belly and scanned in using a barcode reader.
O'Connor
noted that the Karuk members were not fishermen, but biologists.
"They're
there for the purpose of re-establishing fish, they're not there to ...
harvest it as the Yuroks do down at the mouth," he said.
"They're more interested that the species survive and that they
return, and they made that clear to the kids when they were up
there."
"In
my mind you have to look at the whole picture of the impact on
fish," Gillespie said.
Students
learned about natural resource management, the science and politics
involved in the decision-making and the way the decisions made affect
the people who live and work on the watershed.
"The
kids learn best by doing it. If you're really going to have an impact on
kids, you have to them out there where it's happening," Gillespie
said.
Rather
than having the students just collect data, Gillespie and O'Connor,
designed the program to bring students up-to-date and give a basis for
some of the watersheds most pressing issues.
O'Connor
wanted to use the program to remind his ANR students of the diversity of
the area they live in.
"I
think a lot of them lose the perspective as to where they're living and
what they have," O'Connor said.
He said
because the
"We
have no other means of waking them up ... we have to make it (
He
wanted his students to know of the importance of the Klamath to local
tribes, such as the Yurok and Karuk.
"The
tribes upriver and down river depend on the fish," he said.
O'Connor
said the first-hand experience taught his students about "nature's
need to restore a proper balance."
Reach
Adam Madison at amadison@triplicate.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted
material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those
who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for
non-profit
research and educational purposes only. For more information go
to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Source:
http://www.triplicate.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=6413