Save the Bay - Winter 2015

20 Winter 2015 l cbf.org
Sam Woolford, an educator for CBF’s Potomac River Program, works with students
to understand the connection between urban communities and the greater watershed.
CBF educator Claire Cambardella oversees students
aboard the Bea Hayman Clark testing water from
the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers for its temperature,
salinity, pH, dissovled oxygen, and other quality issues.

Do unto those downstream, as you would have those upstream do unto you.” This is CBF Educator Sam Woolford’s favorite quote.

Woolford and fellow educator and Captain Eric Marshall run CBF’s Potomac River Field Education Program on the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers in Washington, D.C. Their floating classroom, the Bea Hayman Clark, accommodates up to 30 students per day for an on-the-water view of the nation’s capital and the city’s connection to the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

These students couldn’t be in more capable hands. Woolford has a master’s degree in conservation ecology and sustainable development from the University of Georgia and dual degrees in Geology and Biology from Brown. His experience in environmental education spans from Save the Bay Narragansett in Rhode Island to community outreach at the University of Georgia. Captain Marshall, who’s been with CBF for 20 years, has worked as a commercial waterman. Together, they help students discover how the aquatic worlds of the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers are linked to daily city life.

As on other CBF education experiences, students trawl to collect fish and record species diversity and, using state-of-the-art equipment, test water-quality for pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen, salinity, turbidity, and other indicators. With a complete picture of the health of the two rivers, students can make comparisons and, using an onboard wireless laptop, compare their findings to the data of professional Bay scientists.

Additional technology is being piloted on the Potomac River Program as well. Students can collect and examine plankton from the river with special microscopes and monitors.

Water-quality discussions get a hands-on component as Captain Marshall steers the students to investigate urban runoff from storm drains, discharge from a sewage treatment plant, and effluent from power plants.

Woolford and Marshall weave together strands from various disciplines to give participants new perspectives on the watershed. They discover what goes on along the river banks affects water quality, and, we hope, they leave understanding the upstream-downstream Golden Rule.