Kalysha Clark

As the end of the school year approaches rapidly, many students have already "checked out" and are preparing for their summer vacation. This can be a frustrating time for teachers, particularly if the end of grade exams have already taken place, but the expectation to continue with lessons is there. 

The Incredible Journey is an activity that allows students to become a water molecule, moving through the ocean, clouds, rivers, animals and more.

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.

You are looking at the new Stormwater Outreach Coordinator for the Piedmont Triad Regional Council!

This is a position through AmeriCorps and is called Project GEOS (Growing Environmental Opportunities through Service). For those who don't know, AmeriCorps is similar to the Peace Corps, but it's for service in the United States. I will serve from March 30th until January 30th, 2016 and will complete 1700 hours.

The Piedmont Triad Regional Council (PTRC) is a voluntary association of local governments that are authorized to make and implement joint regional decisions, provide management, planning and technical services to local governments, bring together local elected officials and give them an opportunity to form working relationships and more. PTRC operates in Alamance, Caswell, Davidson, Davie, Forsyth, Guilford, Montgomery, Randolph, Rockingham, Stokes, Surry and Yadkin counties in North Carolina.

As the Stormwater Outreach Coordinator, my responsibilities fall into three categories: environmental education, conservation volunteer program development, and disaster preparedness.

In short, here are some things I can expect to do while serving at the PTRC.

• Create outreach materials such as blogs, newsletters, flyers, brochures and programs to expand participation on environmental education events.
• Provide outreach for PTRC at local fairs and festivals
• Assist in providing hands-on environmental education activities
• Establish a volunteer policy for Stormwater Smart
• Recruit, train and lead volunteers during conservation activities such as water quality monitoring, storm drain marking, rain garden building, litter removal, etc.
• Assist in development of a disaster preparedness program

What a great way to start my Junior year in college! I went for a job interview at a coffeehouse on campus, called Port City Java, this morning at 10:00 AM and BAM! I got the job. I start training tomorrow morning at 9 AM! I'm very excited to take on the adventure that comes with being a Barista. I have experience making drinks from my time at Sonic, but PCJ has a lot of different drinks and sandwiches that I'll have to learn. I'm sure I can do it, it will just take some time!

In other news, school starts on Wednesday! Where did the time go!?