Waterfest 2009

Every year the Cedar River Watershed Institute puts on an event called "Waterfest", a free family friend event to celebrate water. The event is held at the Cedar River Watershed Education Center and each year the Friends of the Cedar River helps by providing a table with information and providing a fun activity for the kids.

This year's Waterfest could not have landed on a more perfect day. With temperatures in the high 70's low 80's people flocked to education center to take in the day's activities. 3 tours to Cedar Falls were provided, and by 1pm, all tours were completely booked. The FCRW table continued to be hopping with our ongoing "plant rubbings" activity and I loved that such a simple activity was a huge hit. Adults were equally inquisitive about the watershed, the health of the watershed, and how can they learn more about the watershed.

Near the end of the day, the Friends ran an obstacle course based activity to demonstrate the challanges faced by salmon. They run an obstacle course complete with a jump rope "turbine", "predators" (parents trying to tag out the kids), firshemen in the ocean, a fish ladder and finally a broad jump over a "waterfall". At the end of the activity we asked the children what was difficult about being a salmon, and what they can do to help salmon swim up river to spawn. A lot of the children has great answers, and were very interested in understanding the lifecycle of a salmon. I think the biggest challange with the exercise is that it is really geared towards a specific age group, so the really young ones struggled a bit, and the older kids were a bit bored. Regardless, I believe the message resonated with a few of the kids and that to me was a success.

All told, I think the day was a great success, and much thanks to the Outreach and Education committee members for taking the time out of their beautiful Saturday to help out.