7th-grade is all wet; Kids find Nature Center, and its streams, a great place to be

Published 8:12 am Wednesday, October 11, 2017

A lot of parents might not enjoy having their children play in water outside this time of year, but those at Jay C. Hormel Nature Center welcome it.

Well, it was more than playing, actually, although Ellis Middle School students thought the experience of water testing and catching crayfish was “pretty fun,” said Shelby Tufte, 12.

“I caught a fish in my net, too,” she said.

Volunteer Merlene Stiles shows seventh-grader Francisco Quetzecua what he dredged up from Dobbins Creek Tuesday at the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center.

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Tufte and her seventh-grade classmates spent the day at the nature center, rotating between six different stations whose focus was water quality. More seventh graders will spend the day there on Thursday.

For many students, it was the first time they had visited the center. They rotated between “stream dancing” at Dobbins Creek, where they collected and identified macro-invertebrates, and then tested water quality at another spot in the creek. There were also games about stream habitat, and a model stream water table that allowed children to see the effects of pollution on the watershed. Adding to the day was a scavenger hunt —which required that students read information displayed in exhibit areas as clues — and a survival game on the nature center’s trails.

“I liked it because it was hands-on,” said another seventh-grader, Carrie Whiteaker, 12. “I liked going into the water to catch the crayfish, mayflies.”

Ellis Middle School seventh-graders participate in a scavenger hunt Tuesday morning inside the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center’s interpretive center.
Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com

One of the instructors, Tanya Loewen, said the all-day event “gives the students a chance to get out of class, and it’s a good, hands-on experience. And, they can also talk to people who are in the career field.”

Nature Center staff said community volunteers enabled the center to provide the stations. Those volunteers included city water quality specialist, Nels Rasmussen; Tim Ruzek and James Fett from the Soil and Water Conservation District; Bill Thompson with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency; and retired center director, Larry Dolphin. Mary Kruger, a science teacher at Ellis Middle School, helped to coordinate with the center for the field trip.