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After a long winter break, our River Ranger interns from KIPP Denver Collegiate High School finally got back to teaching days! They joined the SPREE team’s excursion training at Overland Pond Park and met the new educators! The river ranger team started the day off playing a new game, set goals for themselves, and worked on some professional development. The interns were paired up with one another to plan how to partner teach one of the four lessons in our 5th grade excursion curriculum. The subjects they teach range from beavers, boating and water safety, pollution in our South Platte River, how to test the health of our river, and how to find critters in Overland Pond.  On the third day of Ranger training, a brisk morning gave way to a sunny, beautiful, late winter afternoon. The perfect day for the River Ranger interns from KIPP Denver Collegiate High School to practice their team teaching skills with the 5th graders of Southmoor Elementary.  Miss Deirdre greets the Southmoor 5th graders at Overland Pond Park. The River Rangers wasted no time putting their skills to the test. After a welcome to the park and introduction of the Educators and Rangers, groups were chosen and the activities began. Rotating through four stations, 5th graders learned about boating and water safety, the pollution challenges the South Platte River faces, students tested real-time health of the river through a serious of scientific experiments and they learned about the species our SPREE mascot belongs to, the beaver. Each one of our Rangers demonstrated confidence, intelligence and poise as they taught alongside our SPREE educators.
After a long winter break, the River Ranger internship is back in full swing! Our high school interns from KIPP Denver Collegiate High School joined us for their second teaching day at Overland Pond Park.
Each school year, The Greenway Foundation works with ten juniors and seniors from KIPP Denver Collegiate High School. These students are selected to train as environmental educators through teaching on SPREE excursions, helping at a day of SPREE holiday camp, and participating in Greenway Leadership Corps (GLC) events.
Our new River Rangers just finished training with us at Johnson Habitat Park, where they will help at camps, and Overland Pond Park, where they will help teach all of the activities in our 5th grade excursions. Training included an overview of environmental education, their roles and responsibilities as interns, and several team building challenges where they had to communicate and work together to succeed. As you can see from the pictures above, they rose to the occasion. The River Rangers will assist SPREE staff on four excursions during the school year. Their first one will be in two weeks, and we could not ask for a more excited and entertaining group of students to act as leaders and educators for 5th graders.  This week at camp, the kids followed the journey of the South Platte River and it's tributaries from its origin all the way to the gulf of Mexico. Throughout the week, the kids had a blast working on a project each day- making a model of Denver's own watershed. Teams worked together to make a landscape, mountains, rivers and creeks, plants, animals, and buildings and cities! The end products turned out great. Monday was all about watersheds. Campers learned what watersheds are, how they work, and where we in Denver get our water from. We even made models of the transmountain diversion and learned our watershed address. Tuesday's focus was on the river in the city. We learned how Denver's water gets cleaned, and where it goes after- back into the South Platte! We experimented with purifying our own water, caught critters in the water, and even helped clean up around the river! On Wednesday we zoomed in on the River and took a look at the aquatic macroinvertebrates living beneath the water's surface. We caught crawdads, clams, dragonfly nymphs, damselfly larva, scuds, water boatmen, and more! We learned that all of these animals are indicator species. We can tell how healthy the river is by what creatures are living in it- turns out, the river is doing great! Another way to test the health of the river is to check on the abiotic, nonliving, factors such as temperature, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, and pH. Crawdads were the catch of the day on Thursday! We learned all about their adaptations, anatomy, what they eat, where they live, and more! And of course we got to go to the river and try to catch some! Then, we had fish Friday! The campers at HQ camp got an extra special treat and got to learn to fish with students from ELK (Environmental Learning for Kids).  On Monday, our High School River Rangers had their second teaching day of the season! The day started off with a Professional Development session focused on how instructors can engage the curiosity of their students. River Rangers discussed different techniques to get students exploring, curious, and asking questions. They then were challenged to engage the curiosity of the students arriving!  The juniors from KIPP Denver Collegiate High School taught a class of 3rd graders at Overland Pond Park, delivering curriculum on water health indicators, beaver adaptations, rafting, and pollution in the city. They each co-taught with a partner, which provided the River Rangers an opportunity to plan out their lesson, receive feedback from their peers, and support each other through the curriculum! The Rangers had an extra challenge that day, as there were 3rd graders learning 5th grade curriculum. This curve ball allowed them to adjust their group management and delivery of information to the youth, applying knowledge they learned during a Professional Development session on age-appropriate teaching.  In the afternoon, River Rangers facilitated and participated in the critter crawl, doing a great job of managing students, engaging their curiosity, and being enthusiastic when students caught crawdads and aquatic macro-invertebrates!
To hear more about our River Ranger program, click here!  This past Monday, our new cohort of High School River Rangers had their first teaching day! A class of 5th grades came to Overland Pond Park, and River Rangers taught activities about water testing, beaver adaptations, pollution in the city, and rafting. Then, in the afternoon, we all got our feet wet as we looked for critters in the pond!  Our ten River Rangers are all juniors at KIPP Denver Collegiate High School, and this teaching day is just the start of a year-long internship that includes four excursion teaching days, as well as a teaching day at Holiday Camp, and the potential for employment at our Summer Camps! River Rangers develop leadership, communication, and critical thinking skills that serve as powerful tools for their future. This program is designed for high school students to explore possibilities in environmental fields through hands-on teaching experience, increased environmental literacy, and adventuring outside.  Fish On!FAMILIES EXPLORE THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF FISHING  Thank you to all of the families who joined us Saturday October 8th, 2016 at Overland Pond Park. It was a fantastic day of crafts, games, and catching fish! Families learned the basics of casting and fishing ethics-- and a few kids even caught their first fish! Environmental Learning for Kids (ELK) partnered with TGF and were the fishing experts for the day. From baiting the hooks to releasing the fish, this event would not happen without their support and their amazing teaching staff! Thank yous also go out to EarthForce and Denver Parks and Recreation for coming out and making Family Fishing Day so much fun! Check out all the pictures from the event on our Facebook page! Missed the fishing event? There is still room at our last SPREE event of the year- Pioneering on the Platte. Come learn about the historic role of the South Platte River on Saturday, November 5th at Johnson Habitat Park from 11 am - 2 pm. Dress like a Pioneer, make Native American-inspired crafts, and pan for gold! Click here to learn more! THANK YOU TO NOBLE ENERGY FOR YOUR SUPPORT OF THIS EVENT!
Theme 8 had us exploring the depths of the South Platte and the Cherry Creek! We learned about the river and creek as a habitat and about the many creatures that live there. We learned about macro invertebrates, fish, birds, crawdads, reptiles, beavers, amphibians, plants, and more! The campers also learned about water quality and performed water quality tests, and we of course explored in the water and caugt critters every day! The Cherry Creek Campers went on a field trip to the Downtown Aquarium and the HQ campers went to Overland Pond Park where students from ELK (Environmental Learning for Kids) taught them how to fish!  |
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