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Students dip into nature
Nanjemoy Creek Environmental Center gives classes a place to dive in
Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2008
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by GARY SMITH
Walter J. Mitchell Elementary School students, from top to bottom, Ishid Camp, Victoria Lusi and Cole Baucom. peer into the marsh which is part of the environmental education center in Nanjemoy.
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Last week, Judy Rhode’s fifth-graders from Walter J. Mitchell Elementary School in La Plata were in the marsh at Nanjemoy Creek Environmental Center, trying to catch some of the many different species of small fish that live there.
Mike Callahan, NCEC environmental education instructor, was having as much fun as the students. Nets and mud were flying everywhere while the class spent the morning catching and identifying the 42 different fish species that were finally captured.
‘‘I love seeing the kids’ faces when they see how exciting nature is,” Callahan said. Callahan has been an instructor at the environmental education center for 11 years.
‘‘It is neat when your hobby and job is the same thing,” Callahan said.
Rhode’s class was spending the night at the center in Nanjemoy. While there, the 24 children were divided into two teams, the eastern blue birds and the box turtles.
While one team was in the marsh, the other was in the aquatics lab, performing experiments.
The children were testing the Nanjemoy Creek water for pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity and water quality.
‘‘This gives the students a chance to see that what happens on land, shows up in our own water latter on,” Paula Batzer, environmental education resource teacher, said. ‘‘Nitrates from fertilizer, yard waste and waste from the animals all end up in the creek. We have a huge deer population in Nanjemoy.”
The Nanjemoy Environmental Education Center was founded 20 years ago, when Nanjemoy native Cal Posey allowed 10 acres of his land to be leased by the Charles County public school system for a dollar a year.
All fifth-graders in the county spend one overnight adventure at the center. The overnight trip meets part of the criteria mandated by the Maryland State Department of Education’s Environmental By-Laws, which state that school systems will provide environmental education within the curriculum at least once each in early, middle and high school learning years. This allows students to have a greater awareness of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed.
‘‘Today’s students will play an important role as stewards of the environment,” Batzer said. ‘‘The students of today will make more important decisions then we ever dreamed.”
Batzer said a trip to the center is a memory-making trip for most students.
‘‘I have had kids stop me, who are grown up now, and tell me the things the did at the center have stayed with them,” Batzer said.
Meanwhile, back in the marsh, Cole Baucom, 9, of La Plata was trying to identify the fish he had just caught.
‘‘It might be a banded killifish, or an eastern mosquito fish,” Cole said.
Grace Ashburn, 10, of La Plata had a fish story to top Coles. ‘‘We caught a 24- inch rockfish in the Wicomico River,” Grace said.
Callahan decided now was a good time to throw in some educational tidbits.
‘‘Did you know there were two Wicomico rivers in Maryland?” Callahan asked. ‘‘One is on the Eastern shore and one is here in Southern Maryland.”
