Kalysha Clark

On Wednesday, I started my position at Piedmont Triad Regional Council full-time. I spent a day in the office reading, learning and taking everything in before hitting the ground running.

During my finals weeks, I took part in some programs with my supervisor, including a creek assessment and water quality - ask the bugs, a program that is similar to the creek assessment, but for younger audiences and that uses a fake stream and bugs.

We sampled the creek for macroinvertebrates and used our data sheets to record our findings. We looked at our recorded data to determine how polluted the stream was.

Students sample a fake stream for bugs.

Students sort through the bugs and identify the ones they found, recording it on their data sheets.

This week, I started out by doing another creek assessment at Trinity High School with the Earth and Environmental Science students. We found lots of great invertebrates, which tell us about the quality of the water, including mayflies, caddisflies, midges, and stoneflies. We also found plenty of crawdads (aka crayfish) and baby salamanders!

Students collect macroinvertebrates and use their data to determine the quality of the water.

Flipping our net inside out so we can rinse off any organisms we caught.

Baby salamander we found.

Friday, I was at North Davidson Middle School teaching students about watershed and pollution using our EnviroScape model. This is a fun and interactive way for students to learn about nonpoint source pollution and how everyday actions could pollute water without us even realizing.

Using the EnviroScape to teach students about pollution and water quality.

This hands on model allows students to act as pollutants or rain and watch as the water travels through the watershed.

Saturday, I represented Stormwater SMART at the city of Summerfield's Founders Day Festival. I talked to festival visitors about water quality, the importance of picking up after your pets, using rain gauges to prevent excess water use and more.

At Stormwater SMART's booth during the Summerfield Founders Day Festival!

Tomorrow, I will be at Central Davidson High School working with students in the Agriculture and Horticulture classes on making rain gardens.