Fishing, conducting ecological surveys and learning about otters are among the activities on tap for Chesterfield School students over the next month.
Those endeavors are part of an initiative starting this week at the K-8 school that will teach students about watersheds ahead of an open house next month. Watersheds are the land that funnels rainfall and snowmelt into bodies of water, according to Lynne Borofsky, the chair of the Chesterfield Conservation Commission, which helped plan and coordinate the initiative.
Chesterfield is home to a handful of watersheds, including Pisgah State Park and the areas surrounding Spofford Lake and California Brook, Borofsky said.
“This schoolwide theme will educate the town’s youngest residents about what watersheds are, why they are important, and what we can do to protect them,” fifth-grade teacher Laura White said in a Thursday email to The Sentinel.
Roughly a year and a half ago, the commission began a study to assess the health of the town’s watersheds, she said. Since finding that its watersheds are in good shape, the commission’s conversation has shifted to how the town can keep them in that condition.
The purpose of the upcoming activities is to focus on the living creatures for whom the watersheds are a habitat, as they benefit from healthy conditions, Borofsky said.
“We’re educating the students on the big picture of what is in our watersheds,” she said.
The initiative kicks off Thursday with introductory classroom lessons and, on Friday, a visit from Susie Spikol, the community programs director at Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock, White said. Spikol will be speaking to students at town hall on Friday about otters, an animal whose wellbeing is an indicator of watershed health.
Otters inhabit California Brook in Chesterfield, Borofsky said.
Later this month, students in grades 1 through 8 will take part in ecological field work to learn about specific aspects of watersheds. First- and 3rd-graders are spending half a day learning to fish and will visit watershed education stations at Camp Spofford, while 2nd-graders head to Pisgah State Park to learn about otters, beavers and erosion with Spikol, White said.
Fourth- and 5th-graders are going to one of Chesterfield’s streams alongside an aquatic ecologist to survey macroinvertebrates, which are backboneless animals that can be seen with the naked eye, like crayfish or mayflies.
Students in grades 6, 7 and 8 will take part in stations at Camp Spofford run by groups including the Spofford Lake Association, Connecticut River Conservancy and N.H. Audubon, according to White. Chesterfield resident Andy Woodcock, who is a retired meteorologist, will also be making presentations to some classes.
The initiative will wrap up with each class creating a display highlighting an aspect of their watershed experience and their reflections, White said. The displays will be showcased during the school’s Oct. 14 open house.
Noah Diedrich can be reached at 603-355-8569, or ndiedrich@keenesentinel.com.
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