Land Trust program puts middle-schoolers at riverside
Middle-school students from Haldane and Garrison schools worked with educators from the Hudson Highlands Land Trust on Oct. 20 as part of a statewide effort to collect scientific information about the Hudson River. Pete Salmansohn of HHLT’s River of Words program guided Haldane students at Little Stony Point beach in Cold Spring while Lisa Mechaley of River of Words and Stewardship Coordinator Matt Decker were stationed at Garrison Landing to assist seventh-graders from Garrison School.
Now in its 13th year, “A Day in the Life of the Hudson River” was coordinated by the state’s Hudson River Estuary Program and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. Its goal is to have students create a snapshot of the river at various locations, including its aquatic life, chemistry, tides and weather. The data is shared online.
River of Words is an international program co-founded by Poet Laureate Robert Hass and affiliated with the Library of Congress Center for the Book. HHLT offers a free regional version to public schools in the Hudson Highlands that focuses on the Hudson River, the lands that flank it and the streams that flow into it.
I’d like to give a very grateful shout-out to the volunteers who contributed their time to “A Day in the Life of the Hudson River” including, Susan Butterfass, Jeanne Fitzgerald, Richard Franco and John Stowell of the Taconic Outdoor Education Center, who let us borrow six of his educators for the day. They were all crucial to the students’ study of the Hudson River, guiding them through the various analysis stations.
Kathy Hamel
Membership & Public Policy Coordinator
Hudson Highlands Land Trust