The Green Guy: Getting a green message to students

In offering workshops and programs at Cloquet Library, the Carlton County Soil and Water Conservation District seeks to better connect with residents with the goal of building up an understanding of all the conservation possibilities and growing community knowledge.

This is mostly a new avenue for us. We do host events through the year, like watershed tours or Walk in the Woods, but they vary and typically are specific to grants or a project. These are great, but have limited scope. And conservation is broad and encompassing. It's something available to everyone through many different actions no matter how big or how small. We saw a need on our part to become more involved and engage people at a wider level. If we can help support a greater awareness of the value of our natural resources, that's a job well done, in our eyes.

With that in mind, let me share a recap of how our inaugural event went on Dec. 9 with the after-school Tinker Club program.

Knowing that the youthful participants would likely feel drained after a day in classes, we wanted to provide something that would be fun and interactive. Given our focus on water impairment from winter maintenance, the "Journey of a Water Drop" was a great fit.

The program showed what makes water dirty in our homes and in our neighborhoods while pointing out how the former is treated and the latter is not (distinguishing sewer water from storm water). This activity served as a perfect means to explain neighborhood pollutants like salt and sand while relating water treatment in nature (through wetlands, vegetation, and soil) to the four-step process for polluted water at WLSSD of screening, settling, microbial activity and filtering.

Where WLSSD has a centralized system of chambers, nature works through a decentralized blanket where tall thick vegetation acts as a screen for the passing water, wetlands slow things down for settling and ample microbe life, and soil finely filters passing water of the invisible molecular stuff. To boot, we were able to refer to these concepts in an activity with the kids, asking them to remedy a pollution-troubled neighborhood using nature's water-cleaning infrastructure.

All this information paired with 16 colorful posters and some on-the-spot acting proved a fun time for us at the SWCD. We hope the bright kids that got to join us felt the same way.

Other upcoming programs include:

• Recycling and food waste, January/February;

• Pollinators and native plants, March/April;

• Rain gardens and stormwater, May/June;

• Soil health, July/August ;

• Invasive species, September/October.

Keep an eye out on our future workshop times and dates ahead.

Chris Gass is the education and outreach coordinator for the Carlton Soil and Water Conservation District whose columns focus on environmental topics and stewardship.