Blog Post: Colfax Community Network Gets Wet and Wild on the Greenway

 

On Monday, June 3rd, our AmeriCorps VISTA, Zach Pekor, took a group of kids from the Colfax Community Network (CCN), a non-profit organization in Aurora, out to the Greenway as part of our summer NextGen series.  The group of 6-12 year olds, who are part of CCN’s summer camp experience, will be coming out to the Greenway almost every Monday during the summer to enjoy our “wilderness in the city”.  The main goal of the Colfax Community Network summer sessions are to educate the students about water quality and how that affects ecosystems.

 

For their first session, the students took part in a nature walk around Bluff Lake Nature Center, complete with deer, hawk, and duck sightings!  After a brief break filled with an environmental education game that got the group active and thinking, the students took to Sand Creek to hunt for macro-invertebrates.  It did not take a lot of coaxing to get the kids into the water and start splashing around trying to find crayfish, blood worms, and bi-valves.  They were so excited that some accidentally walked into the creek with their shoes on!  The students absolutely loved being on the Greenway, which you could tell from their laughs and squeals when they found a live crayfish!  They also enjoyed a nice reprieve from the heat as they waded through the water to pick-up trash and find bi-valve shells.

 

The Colfax Community Network’s next trip will be to the Star K Ranch in Aurora where the students will actually begin sampling and testing the water for pH, turbidity (sediment in the water), and oxygen content.