Know Your Watershed Week: April 28 – May 6

To know your watershed is to love it. The first annual Know Your Watershed Week, April 28 -May 6, organized by Wolf Creek Community Alliance, will celebrate the Yuba, Bear and American River watersheds with many family-friendly activities and volunteer opportunities. Throughout the week, people of all ages will have the opportunity to learn what watershed they live in, discover interesting things about it, find out more about organizations that support watershed conservation, and have an enjoyable outdoor experience.

In celebration of the Yuba watershed, SYRCL is scheduling FREE Water Audit classroom visits and Great Water Mystery school assemblies in honor of Know Your Watershed Week. The Water Audit and Great Water Mystery programs are both targeted at providing students with a better understanding of their watershed and how water is used in their daily lives.

The Water Audit is an integrated curriculum that leads students in an interactive exploration of the water cycle and gives students the opportunity to play an active role in how their school, home, and community uses and conserves water. By conducting a water audit in their school, students explore where water is being used and where it can be conserved. Meeting state standards in math, science, and language arts, this curriculum unit empowers students civic-mindedness and problem-solving.

The Great Water Mystery is an interactive in-school assembly program that uses an engaging mystery story to teach children about water conservation. The assembly’s goal is to encourage kids and their families to incorporate simple water conservation techniques into their daily lives.

On Sunday, May 6, SYRCL is teaming up with Bear Yuba Land Trust (BYLT) to offer a BioBlitz – a free event that focuses on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area over a short period of time. Bring the whole family and a picnic lunch to the Cascade Canal/ Orene Weatherall trail from 10 am – 2 pm. Enjoy spending time in your watershed and learning about the plants, animals, and fungi that live there. No scientific experience is necessary – experts will be on hand to help identify species – just bring a camera, notebook and pencil or Smart Phone with the iNaturalist app downloaded. Data collected will help track the health of plant and wildlife habitat over time.

Participating organizations/agencies/schools in Know Your Watershed Week include:  American River Conservancy, American River Institute, American Rivers, Bear Yuba Land Trust, Grass Valley Charter School, Placer Land Trust, Placer Nature Center, California Native Plant Society: Redbud Chapter, Save the Bear River, Sierra Academy of Expeditionary Learning, Sierra Foothills Audubon, Woolman at Sierra Friends Center, Sierra Land Trust, The Sierra Fund, Sierra Streams Institute, South Yuba River Citizens League, South Yuba River Park Association, Three Forks Bakery & Brewing Company, Wolf Creek Community Alliance, and the Yuba Watershed Institute.

For more information about scheduling an in-classroom experience or about the BioBlitz, please contact Megan Learned, River Education Manager at megan@yubariver.org  or (530) 265-5961 ext. 218. Or visit: www.knowyourwatershed.org.