Each year, ERWIG teams up with the AmeriCorps Watershed Stewards Project to host Creek Days, an environmental education fair, which highlights the end of the school year for hundreds of Humboldt County students and teachers. The theme of the event is interconnectedness; throughout the day students learn that every place on earth is in a watershed and everything that happens in a watershed affects the streams, and the salmon! Our hope is that through education and hands on experience, these students will become lifelong advocates for environmental conservation. The location for Creek Days changes each year in order to diversify the schools that are able to attend the event. Past locations have included Freshwater Park, Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Trinidad and Pamplin Grove.
Creek Days 2018
Creek Days will be held in Gould Grove this year on May 8th, 9th and 10th. This year up to 350 children will be attending from eight different schools. The children will be led along a loop trail in an old growth redwood forest, stopping at booths along the way. Many of the most popular booths from years past will be included this year, such as scats and tracks, macro-invertebrates, and the erosion table. We will also have some brand new booths including fire ecology and a Native American booth staffed by volunteers from the Bear River Band.
Creek Days 2017
In May of 2017 over 400 children from seven schools attended Creek Days at Freshwater Park. The three day environmental education fair was made up of a dozen booths each of which contained a hands-on activity where the children learned about such topics as the salmon life cycle, erosion, native and invasive plants, wildlife scats and tracks and how to make seed balls. Each booth was staffed by a volunteer who became the student's teacher for the 15 minutes or so each group was at the booth. While walking through the forest between booths a volunteer docent kept the kids entertained and played nature based games with them.
Macroinvertebrate booth where kids learn about and capture the small creatures that live in streams.
The Watershed Model demonstrates how trash and pollution ends up in streams.
A creekside booth gave the children an opportunity to see erosion in action.
The last day of Creek Days was a rainy one. The students and volunteers still had a great day!
At the end of each day all the schools got together and did the BioBlitz Dance!
