This week we will have high schoolers, elementary schoolers, middle schoolers, and homeschoolers visiting the Watershed Center for hands-on water education. From Mountain Grove to Pierce City to Morrisville to our own Springfield Public Schools, we are reaching and impacting many of the students in our region. It is important for these students to connect […]
Like all fungi, the delicious morels popping up this time of year are the fruit sprouting from the hidden hyphae in the soil. To use tree roots as an analogue for the hyphae would be an inappropriate comparison. Instead, you can imagine the entire apple tree is buried beneath the soil, absorbing nutrients, living, growing, […]
This week, we have flipped the script on our traditional field trips. Typically, we would be seeing fifth graders on field trips, looking at bugs, walking the trail and learning. We also would see some college students out here building trails and clearing brush. Not this week. Yesterday, a group of students from OTC’s Richwood […]
Fish are biting, toads are singing at a deafening constancy, and the first wildflowers of spring are blooming. These are the signs of spring. Just as constant are the field trips of spring at the Watershed Center. If you have worked with us on a field trip in the past, I hope you enjoyed it […]
Aristotle is credited with the phrase, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Today, Mike and I traveled down to Nixa for the James River Basin Partnership Watershed Festival. We were each given a group of fifth graders and spread out to lead an activity called Sum of the Parts. Crayons rolled […]
Yesterday around lunch time, about forty people gathered at the Watershed Center to talk about the biggest aquatic invasion since the discovery of zebra mussels. Hydrilla (Hydrilla verticillata) is an invasive aquatic plant that, if left untreated for too long, will completely overtake a lake or backwater. The short story is this: the plant was […]
This morning, we met with our friend Lynn from the Valley Water Mill Equestrian Center to go over some goals for Valley Water Mill Park and our cooperative education and outreach efforts. We met a few years ago and discussed similar topics, setting ourselves goals for the coming years. Some of those goals were: Remove […]
“All of life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” -Martin Luther King, Jr. I woke up and mumbled some unsavory phrases as I looked at the weather app on my phone Monday morning. It was […]
We are so excited about our new board walk here at the Watershed Center. For the last few years, our old board walk along the north eastern edge of the lake has held water after every rain storm, causing deep puddles and slick spots on the structure that is meant to keep visitors safe and […]
At Thanksgiving we humbly reflect on the wonderful community of people—our staff, sponsors, partners, volunteers, donors, and friends—who we get to work with in our pursuit of the common goal of clean water. And not only that, we get to work together here in the beautiful Missouri Ozarks. Tis a privilege to live in the […]
