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THe Greenway Foundation Blog

Amazing Animal Engineers: Holiday Camp Recap!

4/4/2018

1 Comment

 
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SPREE started April by hosting a holiday camp on Monday. The camp’s theme was Amazing Animal Engineers…. though campers quickly pointed out that plants can be engineers too! Campers began the day exploring the definition of an engineer- someone that solves problems, usually though innovation, design, and building. 
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While it is easy to associate engineering with humans, it is true that we have many ecosystem engineers in Denver. An ecosystem engineer is an organism that creates, maintain, or destroys habitats. Ecosystem engineers typically have a large impact on species richness of an area, or the number of species we see in a given space. Since we only had one day of camp, we focused on both charismatic and overlooked ecosystem engineers in Colorado- the beaver, prairie dogs, freshwater clams, and trees. 

In our first activity, campers transformed into beavers to learn about why beavers build dams. A beaver has webbed feet, and is much better at swimming than walking. Beavers build dams to flood rivers so they can swim to their food. Beavers bring the food to themselves! While the motivation of a beaver creating a dam is selfish, the resulting beaver pond that is created creates a riparian ecosystem. Riparian ecosystems form near water- over 80% of Denver’s species need riparian ecosystems, but only 2% of land space is riparian. Campers practiced building beaver dams to flood a river so they could collect food without getting gobbled up by a land predator.
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SPREE Beavers practicing getting food from the River
Prairie dogs were the theme of our second activity. At SPREE, we can’t teach about prairie dogs without building a human-size prairie dog town creating tunnels with blankets. Campers transformed into prairie dogs to play a game of survival. Taking turns as the sentinel, or watchman dog, a dog would “yip” when they saw a predator signaling to other prairie dogs to get safely back to the tunnels. Prairie dogs are ecosystem engineers because they create tunnels, which create homes for other animals (like burrowing owls, snakes, rodents) and aerate soil which promotes plant growth. 
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Each SPREE prairie dog family came up with a unique way to build their tunnels
During critter crawl, our third activity campers learned about how clams in our River are engineers. Clams are pretty incredible creatures that filter water to find their food. As they are filtering food out of the water, clams clean the water too. We went down to the river to count the number of clams we caught, along with many crawdads & leeches that were down there as well!
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How many clams do you think we caught?

We wrapped up the day talking about an ecosystem engineer that is easily overlooked when it shares its space with more charismatic engineers- trees. Trees are fantastic organisms that among other things make the air we breathe! They also create habitats and homes for many other plants and animals in our city, making them engineers. We learned about trees, by creating a human SPREE tree! Campers all participated as different parts of a tree. By the end of the day, we had a giant moving, living tree to celebrate!
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SPREE staff were at the center of our human tree, representing the heartwood of the plant
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Amazing Animal Engineers holiday camp was a great way to kick off April; we look forward to seeing you by the River again soon!
​

1 Comment
Jenelle Martin link
4/5/2018 12:42:06 pm

My family enjoys these re-caps as I share this blog and the photos with them. Jordan, Justin & Jaz always enjoy attending your camps and I want to especially thank you for including words of encouragement in their lunchboxes to read later. YOU GUYS KNOW how to do camp right! Thanks for the re-cap and THANKS A MILLION for the photos. We've shared them with godparents and friends and love how you get children outdoors for their explorations! As you know, these lessons will last a lifetime!

Reply



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  • About Us
    • About Us >
      • Greenway Current (Annual Report)
      • Flood of 1965
      • Greenway Videos
    • River & Trail Info
    • Blog
    • Success Stories >
      • 1970s
      • 1980s
      • 1990s
      • 2000s
      • 2010-2014
      • 2015-Future
    • Volunteer
    • Employment
    • Staff
    • Contact Us
    • Search
  • Education
    • SPREE >
      • SPREE Home Page
      • Just for Kids!
      • Support SPREE
    • Virtual Field Trips
    • Field Trips >
      • Excursions By Grade >
        • ECE
        • Kindergarten
        • 1st Grade
        • 2nd Grade
        • 3rd Grade
        • 4th Grade
        • 5th Grade
      • Excursion Signup
      • Feedback
      • Excursion FAQ
    • Camp >
      • Summer Camp
      • School Break Camps
      • Leaders in Training
      • FAQ
    • Learning SPREE
    • After School
    • High School >
      • River Rangers >
        • School Internships
        • Summer Employment
        • Why Environmental Education?
      • Greenway Leadership Corps >
        • The Water Connection >
          • About The Water Connection
          • Nautilus Installed in Cherry Creek
          • TAP-IN Colorado
          • Gutter Bin Pilot
          • Clean River Design Challenge
          • Minimum Stream Flow
  • Water Resources
  • Projects
    • River Vision Implementation Plan (RVIP) >
      • Johnson Habitat Park
      • Weir Gulch
    • Chatfield Storage Reallocation Project
    • USACE Feasibility Study
    • Clear Creek Greenway Design Effort
    • Cherry Creek Stewardship Partners
  • Events
    • Spring South Platte Stewardship Day >
      • Family Spring Stewardship Day
    • Art on the River
    • Citizens for the River
    • Reception on the River
    • Rock the River >
      • Rock the River Catering
      • Rock the River Viewing Instructions
    • Gala on the Bridge
    • Bridge Party
    • Fall South Platte Stewardship Day >
      • Family Fall Stewardship Day
    • Family Fishing Day
  • Donate
    • Colorado Gives Day
  • Email Sign Up