​​Educators of all types and backgrounds are encouraged to attend the special full-day Ripple Effect Environmental Literacy Convening event on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, in Williamsport.

“The convening is the culmination of multiple years of effort to create a Northcentral Pennsylvania Environmental Literacy hub where formal and non-formal educators can interact with the shared goal to increase environmental literacy to both K-12 students and their communities,” said hub coordinator Colleen Epler-Ruths of the Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit. “Other hubs around the state have done similar events last summer, so we wanted to offer that same opportunity to our region.”

The event will begin at Lycoming College’s Heim Building and include a morning rotation of breakout sessions designed to give teachers of all types new tools and opportunities to incorporate the new STEELS (Science, Technology & Engineering, and Environmental Literacy and Sustainability​) standards into classrooms from public school to homeschool and every variation in between. This will be followed by rotations across three local environmental education venues and then a wrap-up opportunity for fellowship with food aboard the Hiawatha Paddleboat.

​Impressed with the growing number of fascinating posts of wildlife photography on social media, Edward Knowles III, of Mullica Hill, NJ, picked up a Canon R8 camera with 600 mm lens just two weeks ago, self-educating himself on ways to improve his photography and editing abilities.

On May 19, he was offered the perfect subject to hone those skills.

“I was with a group of guys fishing and we found a dead trout along the shore that laid there about an hour without any activity when suddenly a large salamander came up and approached the trout,” he said. “He came up, checked it out, grabbed it by the head and pulled it into the water. Once he got into the stream, he separated from it and dispersed. It all happened so quickly that I only got two photos.”

​​According to Susquehanna County Conservation District Program Coordinator Don Hibbard, the key to making a difference in our day-to-day lives for the sake of protecting natural resources can come down to observation.

“I like to encourage people to ask a simple question when they are about to throw something away – where is away?” he said. “Maybe that will encourage you to recycle more instead of throwing garbage away because a lot of times, our trash ends up in places we don’t realize and a lot of those facilities don’t process garbage the right way.”

So mindfully thinking about how you dispose of things or reuse them can be vital, as well as planting trees.

The Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association is once again hosting its HERYN (Helping Engage our River's Youth with Nature) kayaking and fishing day camps in the West Branch region this summer.

​The nonprofit will be offering two days of programs, with a different group of 8-13 year-old participants each day, rotating through ​stations to learn the fundamentals of fishing, kayaking and conservation.

The program will be offered July 1-2, 2025, at Bald Eagle State Park's 1,000-acre Foster Joseph Sayers Reservoir near Howard. Check out details and photos from last year's program at this site by clicking here.

​Taylor Weddington admits that she always had a special connection with her grandfather, David Staebler, who passed away earlier this year but leaves behind a lasting legacy for our natural resources.

“He cared deeply about the environment, with his core rule anytime we visited a new place being to always leave it better than when you found it,” she said. “Whether that was picking up a piece of trash on the walking trail or making someone’s day a little brighter.”

An instrumental mover-and-shaker within the Buffalo Creek Watershed Alliance out of Lewisburg, Staebler had become a fixture in water quality conversations and improvement projects across the watershed.

Because of his countless hours of volunteer work and dedication to inspiring others, Staebler is being posthumously honored with the 2024 Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association’s Kathleen Snavely Susquehanna River Environmental Advocate Award.

Riverkeeper's note: The following story and podcast interview was completed by Emily Shosh.

​While Amidea Daniel's duties with the PA Fish and Boat Commission may get busy this time of year, the core focus of her work is fairly simple.

“The goal is to connect folks to the resources, to themselves and to the opportunities that these resources can provide to them in the future through outdoor experiences and good health,” she said of being the agency's Northcentral Region Education Coordinator.

Statewide, she manages the fish and boat commission's Trout in the Classroom (TIC) program, women's statewide mentor events and program, along with implementing programming in the 14-county Northcentral region.

With five years of original Songs of the Susquehanna submissions accumulating and a growing need to engage young people with improving statewide standards in environmental literacy in the public school system, the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association pulled some of the more educational based submissions into a new collection called Aquatics & Acoustics. 

This project is currently available with a full-color booklet with lyrics for each song and some talking points for students on the song itself and how to tie it into the bigger environmental discussion. it also includes all songs on a USB thumb drive.

"The goal isn't just to provide songs that provide another creative portal for students to engage with our natural world, but also to hopefully get them connecting with music and the arts, as well," said Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper John Zaktansky. "We'd love to see this new initiative lead to students developing their own creative pieces - whether that is in the form of songs or poems or other pieces of art - reflecting how they see the natural world and helping spread the excitement and learning to their peers."

​Riverkeeper note: The following feature was written by Northern Tier Regional Director Emily Shosh after a Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Podcast conversation with Andrew Mickey.

​Andrew Mickey, Conservation Program Specialist with the State Conservation Commission (SCC), has been an avid outdoorsman in the coal region of Schuylkill County - fishing and hunting since he was a kid.

"These interests, and seeing the environmental damage caused by historic mining, led me to get involved with conservation organizations and ultimately pursue a career in conservation,” he said.
 
Now, Mickey coordinates projects with the SCC within the Pennsylvania Dirt, Gravel, and Low Volume Roads (DGLVR) Maintenance Program.