Through a Watershed Discovery Workshop presented by the San Mateo County Resource Conservation District, elementary school students learn real world scientific techniques while studying the land-ocean connection and how human activities can eventually lead to ocean pollution. The workshop is also a chance for kids to get outdoors and have fun.
“I think it’s really cool,” said 10-year-old Sean Carr, a fifth-grader in Anne Mangold’s combined fourth- and fifth-grade class. The class got its chance to participate on May 14. “We get to go out of school and learn about bacteria in manure. It’s bad for the creek and good for the grass.”
 Carolann Towe, right, a Resource Specialist with the San Mateo Country Resource Conservation District helps Faralline View Elementary School student Ally Boville take a water sample at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve Wednesday during a class field trip in which the students learned about watershed health. |
Towe is credited with creating much of the watershed education program. The goal of the Watershed Discovery Workshop is to reach every fifth-grader on the coast. The children dutifully labeled the bottles with date, location, time and name, and recorded their observations. San Mateo County Park Ranger Sarah Lenz explained her role of keeping the park clean, and keeping the wildlife and people safe.
“What can we do at home to keep your creek clean,” Lenz asked, as she paused for a number of suggestions that included washing your car on the grass, reusing plastic bags, and recycling. “Leave the park a little bit better than you found it,” Lenz added. “If you see a bit of trash, pick it up. Does that sound like a good idea? There are 10 sea otters living off the marine reserve. So, it’s important to keep motor oil and detergent and trash out of the ocean.”
On the rocky shore, a herd of sea lions basked in the sunshine while a couple of oyster catchers chased around in the tide pools, but the students weren’t there to look at the wildlife. Each took a water sample and headed back to Moss Beach Ranch, where owner Rich Allen has converted an old tack room into a classroom laboratory.
It’s a well-designed space with bleachers on one wall and lab benches on three sides. One group of kids looked at prepared slides of diatoms and herring larvae through a microscope, while another group prepared the water samples for water quality testing.
“It’s really important to reach the children and give them a science experience to create an interest in science in the next generation,” Towe said. “Water is a precious resource. The next generation must look at the problems and find constructive and resourceful ways to take care of the environment.”
Moss Beach Ranch is an orderly horse ranch that seems ideal as an outdoor field campus. But, eight years ago, when Allen first purchased it, the rance was so contaminated with E. coli that he was threatened with a potential lawsuit. Horses wallowed in the creek, dropping manure and trampling the vegetation.
“When I first took over the ranch, there was no riparian corridor,” Allen told Mangold’s class. “I moved everything back by about 75 to 100 feet. The riparian corridor acts as a filter. It’s nature’s way of keeping pollutants out of the creek.”
Allen led the kids and parents on a creek walk and pointed out Montara Mountain. He scooped up gravel from the creek bed and gave each kid a handful. The gravel is eroded rock from the mountain, he explained. It provides good habitat for developing salmon, but under the canopy of a large grove of eucalyptus trees, the water quality is degraded. The eucalyptus trees have an oily substance that prevents plants from growing in the understory.
Without such plants, the banks are eroding and fine silt and dirt get into the creek, harming fish, insects and other important animals in the riparian food web. Allen is seeking permits to remove three such eucalyptus groves on his property.
“I’ve proven that a horse ranch can be a good steward of the watershed,” Allen said. “When I found that the creek was polluted, I became more involved. I’m very proud of what I’ve accomplished, and I want to share what I’ve learned with other people. It’s possible in all watersheds. It’s not easy, but it’s doable.”
Meanwhile, back at the ranch lab, kids worked outside with watershed models. They built neighborhoods, ranches, creek, and beach with diatomaceous earth. They installed plastic figures of horses, cars, houses, birds, and marine animals. They sprinkled cocoa for dirt, chocolate syrup for motor oil, colored sprinkles for plastics and chocolate sprinkles for feces in all the likely places. Then, with spray bottles to produce a storm of sorts, they unleashed a torrent of giggles and a deluge.
They saw pollutants dissolve and smear ominously toward the marine reserve. Chocolate sprinkles dissolved and streaked realistically, plastic animals tumbled and Popsicle stick fences sagged. The kids saw the erosion as the banks of their homemade creek crumbled. Water and pollutants raged downstream into the Lilliputian ocean. Chocolate ooze buried sea creatures.
“By the time the creek gets to the marine reserve, it’s gone through rural and urban neighborhoods,” Allen says. “The kids get that. By the end of the day, they see the connection between what’s happening in the creek and the marine reserve. Everybody has a responsibility to protect the watershed.”
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