Water Education Day connects 240 Columbia County eighth-graders with aquatic resources, awareness

A total of 240 eighth-graders from schools such as Benton, Central Columbia, Bloomsburg and other Columbia County districts converged at Briar Creek Lake Park near Berwick for the county conservation district's annual Water Education Day on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022.

​Under the theme "Good Water = Good Life," students rotated through ​stations on groundwater, surface water, fish ecology, general water quality, and even used art, poetry, and music to convey messages about water conservation.

On a personal standpoint, I (Riverkeeper John Zaktansky) was very thankful to be invited to participate in the Discovery and Music station.

After I gave a short presentation on the Susquehanna River watershed and historical importance, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission's Johanna Hripto provided a great overview of the American Eel's place in our watershed and efforts to help their populations return to our waterways.

Don Shappelle and the Pickups provided musical accompaniment as the students checked out a collection of live elvers (young eels) collected the day before at the Conowingo Dam's fish ladder structure and then everyone participated in a game that helped illustrate the difficult migration eels experience in their life cycles.

Check out more about the station with an overview video and photo gallery below. Learn more about eels at the SRBC's American Eel brochure page.

​On behalf of the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association, I wanted to thank the Columbia County Conservation District for this event as a way to help inspire students to better understand and advocate for our aquatic resources!