Sixth graders throughout the area explored all things nature Wednesday, May 17 at Camp Wilderness.
The annual freshwater festival drew students from Park Rapids, Nevis, Laporte, Walker-Hackensack-Akeley and St. Philip’s schools to get up close with nature, from soils and trees to birds and fish.
As groups of students moved between campsites, an amphitheater, a pavilion and the camp’s nature center, naturalists and conservationists from Itasca State Park, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Headwaters Science Center (HSC) introduced them to a variety of conservation-related topics.
Park Rapids DNR Forester Brad Witkin and volunteer Russ Johnsrud, retired director of the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Park Rapids office, talked about forests and soil types, with Johnsrud using a soccer ball, a softball and a BB to compare the sizes of a single particle of sand, silt and clay, respectively.
Calub Shavlik with Park Rapids DNR Fisheries shared some secrets about how to tell different kinds of fish apart, such as the single dorsal fin that distinguishes sunfish from perch, the orange tip on the earflap that separates a pumpkinseed from a bluegill, and the dot on its fin that signals whether a bowfin is male or female.
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Shavlik also discussed how different fish species behave, how big they grow and where they like to hang out.
James Owens and Chuck Deeter with the HSC invited student volunteers to take part in entertaining experiments about the different states of water, such as how cold and warm water mix together, what happens when you add liquid nitrogen and whether a layer of T-shirt material stretched across the mouth of a flask will keep the water from pouring out on a student’s head.
Claire Dobie with the DNR explained some of the unique characteristics of the common loon, such as the red eye color that signifies that a loon is of breeding age, and also helps them see underwater.
Lynee Ochsner with the HSC introduced students to several different raptors, including Whoopi the northern saw-whet owl, Oswald the great horned owl and O’Reilly the red-tailed hawk.
Other speakers shared information about aquatic invasive species, dragonflies, rainfall, tree planting and more, and everyone got a chance to take home a tree seedling to plant at home.
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