A Spring River Clean-Up

This Monday the River Stewards are organizing a clean-up on the Great Miami River with Ken Carmen . We are hoping this is a start to a prosperous collaboration, as we try to create a rapid-response river-clean up system in response to water levels and the amount of trash left behind.

If you are interested, meet at 4:30pm on Monday, April 5th at Carrilon Park.

This is also a last effort for the 2010 cohort to offer Stewardship to our rivers!

Another successful day kayaking with the students of Trotwood Madison High School

Thanks to all the River Stewards who participated in this rewarding outreach opportunity. We look forward to our next visit in October!

Save the date for the Dayton Water Conference; May 10-12th

http://www.daytonwaterconference.org/index.php

River Leadership Curriculum Progress

On March 23rd the Rivers Institute held an orientation and workshop session for the River Leadership Curriculum. Faculty, community partners, and students came together to discuss what the four subject units (River Science, River Cities, Water Civilization and the Common Good, and Sustainability) of the curriculum will look like in the Fall. Some great ideas came out of the session.

Next, each group that represents each subject unit will be meeting multiple times before the semester is over in order to plan out what the development this summer will need to accomplish.

It was great to see the groups working together to make the curriculum great!

Thanks to all who attended the session!

Update from 2011 Cohort's Mini-course Meeting

This week during our mini-course we, the junior River Stewards, discussed our senior project and other plans for our senior year.

Kayak Trip

After hearing about the current senior River Stewards' epic kayak trip last summer from the headwaters, we discussed the possibility of doing a similar length trip before school starts next fall. We are leaning towards doing a five day recreational trip starting Thursday August 19th, after new stewards orientation. Those of us who will be in Dayton over the summer will work further on planning the trip and organizing materials.

Senior Project

The rest of our meeting involved discussing options for our senior project. We would ultimately like to design leadership curriculum involving a low ropes/challenge course. We think that such a project would be beneficial to the University and the community by fostering outdoor leadership education and providing a way for the community to connect with the river.

It was decided that a good first step towards assessing the feasibility and implementation of such a project would be to visit a site which already has a ropes/challenge course similar to the one we wish to deign. Summit Vision in Columbus was discussed as a possible location to visit because it is very close. A possible time to visit would be the Monday before orientation (Aug 16th). The website is below along with a description of the Walnut Bluffs, the facility that looked the most interesting to us. It is about 1hr 45 mins away. Contact will be made in the coming months to try to set up a tour and to foster a beneficial relationship with Summit Vision.

http://www.summit-vision.com/

"The Walnut Bluffs property is owned by The Columbus Recreation & Parks department and is located at 8111 Schott Road in Westerville, Ohio--right next to the Hoover Reservoir. Walnut Bluffs is a beautiful, wooded area with waterfront access. Summit Vision has approximately 40 fixed initiatives on site along with two 23 element ropes courses and a climbing tower/high element area that can accommodate up to 110 participants at a time. Each ropes course can accommodate up to 30 participants at a time. Summit Vision has the capacity to handle up to 8 initiatives groups at a time on a daily basis."

Another suggestion: My mother used to work for Elam Environmental Center (which is affiliated with Girl Scouts of Ohio's Heartland). They have a challenge course with at least 10 elements that looks about the same size as the one we are looking to design. They do leadership programs there for students. It's only about an hour away and I think it would be a chance to see a course that was built in-house and is run by a center that deals primarily in outdoor education. I will try and find out more information about it and give an update.

http://www.gsohiosheartland.org/PROGRAMS/CAMP/camp_environmental_center.aspx

-Liz Marsh

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/03/water.html

A Rainy Spring for the Northern Midwest

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124970684