Water Week at Adventure Central

What’s new with the River Steward Interns? Adventure Central summer camp!

Last week, our summer team spent four days at Adventure Central with 125 summer day campers and a stellar camp staff. River Stewards facilitated “Water Week” themed activities, led tours of the RiverMobile and enjoyed every second spent with the nature loving campers!

Stephen, 2016 Cohort, explains the benefits of being a responsible river neighbor. 

This was our fourth year working with Adventure Central, but the RiverMobile’s first time on site. Older campers toured the RiverMobile Tuesday and left with a set of water related vocabulary words (aquifer, watershed, downstream neighbor).  At the end of the day, many campers tested out their new river knowledge by leading RiverMobile tours for parents and siblings.

Casey, 2016 Cohort, explains how to make
an edible aquifer.

Campers paddling a welcoming Wolf Creek

On Wednesday and Thursday each group kayaked on the Wolf Creek, completed water quality testing, created river pledges and indulged in edible aquifers. The week’s events emphasized why the Wolf Creek is an asset for Adventure Central and our watershed.

Curious about the Wolf Creek's water quality? Ask an AC camper. 

        Campers completing a quiet reflection exercise
 before completing a personal river pledge. 

As usual, our week with Adventure Central was full of high fives, youth driven insight and river love. Temperatures pushed 90 degrees, but that didn’t stop anyone from playing outside and especially not from getting wet! The hot weather reminded all of us why we love and benefit from our clean, cool Dayton water.

  

           Allie Brizzi, a UD Semester of Service student,  poses with her hyped up campers!
Cheers to edible aquifers, summer camp silliness and the great outdoors. 

Visit Adventure Central’s website or Facebook page to learn more about why we love to partner with them! 

-Katelyn 

(2015 Cohort)

Adventure Central Summer Camp Staff Training!

The Rivers Institute Summer Staff went out to Adventure Central on Thursday to lead the fourth day of AC’s summer camp staff training. After some brief introductions and a short reflection on the common goals of Adventure Central and the Rivers Institute, the staff loosened up with some fun icebreaker activities and a few large group teambuilding activities. The staff members were excited to partake in and learn a few new icebreakers, teambuilding activities, and small group games to use during their summer camp programs.

After splitting into two teams (The Carrots vs. The Beets), the group took to the Wolf Creek to clean the creek of trash and try to out-collect the opposing team. In the end, both teams collected a large amount of trash and felt excited and proud of the fact that they would have a clean area of the creek for their campers to experience this summer.

The staff walks the banks of the Wolf Creek, cleaning up litter and debris washed up from the recent rain events. 

The group then split into their summer teaching groups and learned more about different topics they could teach at the creek, such as macro invertebrate sampling, water quality testing and biodiversity activities. 

Alex teaches one of the groups about the importance of Macro Invertebrates and their role in determining the quality of the creek's water. 

One group found a Water Penny Larva, a macro invertebrate that requires very high water quality. It was the first time that the we had found a Water Penny Larva in the Wolf Creek!

Our final activities focused on kayaking and water safety, as well as small group management and teambuilding. The staff was happy to participate in many of the same activities that their campers would experience during Adventure Central’s Water Week with the Rivers Institute next week.

Adventure Central Staff modeling their safe and always fashionable Personal Flotation Devices (PFDs).

 As the day came to an end, we closed out our program with a great discussion and reflection on the Wolf Creek and its role in Adventure Central’s summer camp. In addition, staff and stewards considered how the Wolf Creek intersects with Adventure Central and the Westwood neighborhood. It was very apparent today that the staff members of Adventure Central truly are the Stewards of the Wolf Creek, and it will be exciting to see how they reach out to the neighboring community to lead people to get out, play, and connect to the amazing Wolf Creek. 

- Andrew