The Greenway Foundation - Blog

Things with Wings Fall Break Camp

11/23/2021

Birds, Bats, and Bugs, Oh My! Spree wrapped up our 2021 camp year with a fun Fall Break Camp theme “Things with Wings” where campers learned all about our flying friends. We kicked off the week with a chilly Monday morning Critter Crawl where campers kept their eyes peeled for water dwelling birds, like Mallards, while looking for flying critters in the River, like Mayflies.
Our second activity of the day was all about nighttime flyers like bats. Did you know bats have fingers in those wings of theirs? That’s right, Bats have fingers as long as their arms, creating powerful wings that help them soar in the night. We also learned about how bats use echolocation to find their food by playing a game of echolocation tag.

On Tuesday, our mission from Chompers was to brainstorm all the obstacles our flying friends might face when migrating to warmer climates in the winter. Migrating birds and butterflies have to face challenges like tall mountains, bad weather, no food, and of course, human impacts like buildings, cars, and lights that may confuse them on their long journey. Chompers challenged campers to see if they could survive this long journey with a migration obstacle course, where campers had to navigate through obstacles representing mountains, rivers, predators and more!
We wrapped up our Things With Wings camp with a Bird scavenger hunt on the way down to Critter crawl, where we caught a bunch of crawdads hiding in the chilly water. All in all, SPREE has had an absolute blast during 2021 and can’t wait to see what Chompers has in store for camps in 2022!

greenway leadership corps - YES conference recap

10/26/2021

The Youth Exploring Stewardship (YES) Conference was such a success due to 20 high schoolers and fellow Youth Exploring Stewardship coalition organizations joining us at the calwood nature near Jamestown, CO! Almost one year to the day after the Cal-wood wildfire that burned part of the land around the education center, we planted over 200 coniferous trees! This effort was led by Angie Busby, the natural resource manager of the land, who continues to revitalize the recovering land. We specifically planted Blue Spruce and Ponderosa Pines- locating them on the north side of larger trees or slopes so they can have some shade to grow. This increases the survival rate of the saplings (baby trees) and thus, will create the best outcome for regrowth on the burnt land.

We kicked off the day with name games and then paused tree planting for lunch in the trees! After our morning in the woods, we went to the greenhouse to pick fresh veggies & eat them right there. The greenhouse was actually built by Angie and another staff member all by themselves! Such an inspiring day with passionate leaders and volunteers!

School Break Camp Recap- Tangled in the Food Web

10/18/2021

Producers, consumers, and decomposers, oh my! During SPREE’s School Break Camp Tangled in the Food Web, campers delved into local food webs and explored the puzzle connecting the sun, plants, animals, and decomposers. Chomper’s is an herbivore, who relies on plants to survive, but his friends Roxy the Racoon and Fiona the Fox are carnivores and omnivores. Do you know what that means about what they eat? Today, campers worked together to find out where each animal sits at the interconnected table of the food web.

After a “Know, Wonder, Learn” brainstorm, campers learned about macroinvertebrates- animals without a backbone that we can see without a microscope- and got a chance to find some in the River at Critter Crawl. Thankfully, due to the warmer weather today, we were able to find all kind of critters, even though the water was still pretty chilly!

During our second activity, we learned all about how food webs are interconnected through a name game involving a yarn web. When an animal no longer is in the ecosystem, like when an animal goes extinct, this can change the food web and even make it fall apart! After learning about food webs and types of consumers, the campers were able to witness the food web in action by dissecting an owl pellet. An owl pellet consists of all the indigestible material of an owl’s diet- like bones and fur. Campers found whole rodent skulls and many tiny bones that they got to take home. We ended the day enjoying the sunshine and perfect fall weather on the playground!

School Break Camp REcap- Prehistoric Pandemonium

10/15/2021

During SPREE’s School Break Camp Prehistoric Pandemonium, campers were ready to time travel back into prehistoric times to learn all about Colorado’s dino-filled past. Our mission was to discover what dino names mean and their role in shaping Colorado’s history. We had a blast at SPREE camp today, despite the chilly morning weather, learning all about Colorado’s prehistoric times!

We started off the day with a KWL- “Know, Wonder, Learn”- where campers gave us all the facts and knowledge they have about dinosaurs- and they sure did know so much about dinos. Our camper’s big debate question was “Did the dinos really all die when the meteor struck Earth or was the extinction already on its way before the meteor event?” We decided scientists will never really know the true answer to that question but we do know that some dinos were going extinct before the meteor struck.

After our brainstorming session, we went down to the River for a chilly Critter Crawl. Campers found some bloodworms, mayfly larvae, and a couple crawdads. But fingers and toes quickly turned icy, so we headed back to the building to warm up a bit during our morning snack.

Our second activity was filled with exciting dino history. Campers mapped out all the dino fossils that have been discovered throughout the years in Colorado. We discussed our favorite dinosaurs and learned about the meanings behind their greek-derived names. “Dino” means “terrible” and “saur” means “lizard”. We ended the lesson with a fun dinosaur skeleton craft!

FAll 2021 Family South Platte Stewardship Day Recap

9/27/2021

This past Saturday, SPREE, along with Denver Parks and Recreation, welcomed 20 families in Globeville Landing Park to work together for Fall Family South Platte Stewardship Day. Over 50 adults and children joined in on a fun morning of picking up trash in a beautiful park along our River. The SPREE family community was supported by the adult stewardship day volunteers working on similar projects in the park: mulching trees in the park, fixing up flower beds, and making the playground safer. All in all, our families collected about 15 bags of trash from around the park, pathways, and the river. None of it would have been possible without the help and support of the Greenway Foundation community.

In addition to cleaning the park, the SPREE tent had fun crafts and activities for all ages. We identified local wildlife scat in the game “Whose Scat is That?. We learned more about where some of our pollution comes from with the Enviroscape, which shows how pollution travels through our cities and neighborhoods. Volunteers who visited our tent were able to draw lollipops for even more prizes! Thank you all for your support, and keep an eye out for more stewardship and family activities in weekends to come!

My Summer as a river ranger- by Hailey m.

9/9/2021

Being a River Ranger isn’t always easy, but it's SO rewarding. Halfway through my junior year of high school I found out about the greenway foundation through my schools newsletter. In the fall I participated in a virtual internship from February to May. I was sad for my internship to end but then was informed that the SPREE offered a paid internship for the summer.
Once I applied and went through the interview process I was finally hired and excited to spend my summer at a kids camp.

In order to be the best possible River Ranger it’s important to prioritize self care before every shift. I learned that getting enough sleep, hydrating, eating a good breakfast, and doing one I like everyday before my shift helped me maintain a positive attitude. Almost everyday consists of being out in 90+ weather and it’s important to take care of yourself if you want to be able to teach kids outside. Taking care of kids was new to me but the SPREE Team gave me all necessary tips to keep children safe while having fun.Before teaching lessons on my own , I got the proper training to learn how to be the best environmental educator possible. Learning the difference between educational vs advocacy or the different learning styles are some of the few things I got to learn to be an educator. With this in mind, every shift river rangers get two 30 min prep times to prepare materials, write scripts, test experiments etc. Even if a lesson is physically prepared, it's important for river rangers to also be mentally prepared and excited to teach their lesson. Critter crawl is another structured activity that is done everyday. Critter crawl consists of river rangers taking campers down to the south platte river and catching macro-invertebrates. Some campers may be too little or just scared to flip a rock and river rangers are there to help assist campers in catching the critters.

An amazing part of this job is all the amount of free time in the day to allow kids to do pretty much any outdoor/indoor activity. Free time is the perfect time to have fun and get to know the campers a bit more on a more personal level. Playing on the playground, painting, bug catching are just a few popular activities. Personally , my favorite part about being a river ranger was getting the chance to be a kid again and just play on the playground with other kids. It was amazing that I got the chance to work while having fun. Most importantly, when things get tough, I get support from my other coworkers daily. It was nice to be able to know I can work around people who genuinely care about me.
As summer was coming to an end, I was once again sad my time with SPREE was wrapping up, or so I thought. I loved my job so much and decided to ask SPREE staff if there was any way possible for me to continue to work for a foundation I truly love. Thanks to my coworkers, I was able to work during the school year and become an ambassador for the greenway foundation. Being a river ranger taught me life skills such as networking, public speaking, time management and much much more.

Week 10- River Art- Camp Recap

8/19/2021

We cannot believe we just wrapped up our final week of SPREE summer camp for 2021! What an amazing summer, and this week’s theme of River Art was a creative, fun way to wrap up the summer.

We got right to work on Monday when during our first activity we created art journals to use throughout the week, studied the color wheel, and created name collages to meet our fellow artists for the week. We also had our first critter crawl on Monday! An activity we do each day at camp to catch and observe the macroinvertebrate critters that live along the river’s bottom. To wrap in art, campers began our week-long macro art project, where we worked on gluing nature materials down on our giant macroinvertebrate for a collaborative art project!

Week 9- Nature Built it First- Camp Recap

8/13/2021

Humans are pretty excellent engineers, but a lot of what we’ve learned started in nature! This week at SPREE camp, we uncovered the original tunnel builders, fliers and what animals have inspired humans in our engineering feats.
On Monday our theme was River Engineers. We began our camp week with a name game to get to learn our fellow engineers at camp for the week. By being able to work together, our engineering projects and experiments will be even better than they could be on their own. Appropriately for River Engineers, the name game we played was a fun game called “Beavers and Lodges”. Beavers are fantastic engineers of our river and create habitat for other animals to live and thrive.

We also had our first critter crawl on Monday. Critter crawl is an activity we do every day at camp and is the time where we get into the river and catch macroinvertebrates like crawdads. It is amazing all the animals we catch with just small nets and recycled tupperware!

Week 8- Radical Reptiles & Awesome Amphibians- Summer Camp

8/6/2021

Herps, herps, herps! What are herps? Reptiles & amphibians of course! This week of camp, we went wild for herpetology and our reptile & amphibian friends of Colorado.

We kicked off the week on Monday with a brainstorm about the herps that live in Colorado and the adaptations they need to survive. Afterwards, we played a name game to learn about other campers. Our second activity of the day was critter crawl. We do critter crawl every day of camp and it is an activity where we get into the South Platte River and catch the macroinvertebrates that live in the water. Since our theme was reptiles & amphibians, we kept our eyes out for tadpoles in our water too!

Week 7- Secret Life of Plants Summer Camp Recap

8/2/2021

Plants are just boring, right? Nothing interesting about them? No way! Here at SPREE we think there is community value to all living things and plants are no exceptions. This week of camp we got into the weeds of our local plants and learned about their adaptations!
On Monday, we began the day with a brainstorm about how important plants are in our lives. So much of what we use are made from plants including paper, wood items, food items, and more! We also played a name game to learn about our fellow campers, before wrapping up the day with our week’s first critter crawl. Critter crawl is the time each day that we get into the river and catch the small macroinvertebrates that live along the river’s bottom.

Tuesday’s theme was plant adaptations. We started the day with some plant experiments! Campers first decorated a flower pot with some mystery because we weren’t sure what would be planted in them! After, we looked at flowers under UV light. Why? Because flowers live a secret life trying to attract pollinators and pollinators see differently than humans, bees see in UV! Campers even transformed into bees and played a game where they needed to find and pollinate flowers.
We also did critter crawl where we focused on finding critters both hidden in the plants, as well as not hiding in plants. We found that some animals, like fish, are found more commonly in plants, but some critters just love hiding under rocks more!