#riverscience

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Last Week with the River Ambassadors!

This week is our final week for the River Ambassador Summer Program. This summer was a triumph, as we expanded our program to 21 students. It was full of new experiences for everyone involved. We had so many fun field trips that helped our students not only learn new things, but expand their outreach to other programs and the public. 

Last Friday, we were able to celebrate such a long, awesome summer by taking some of our Ambassadors on a kayak excursion to Three Sisters.

Despite the rain, the River Ambassadors showed up ready to go. Thankfully, the weather let up for us, and most of what we faced was a light drizzle. 

They even sang songs along the trip! 

Thank you Ali and Alex for accompanying and providing safety for our excursion! 

This week, we are winding down with our lab programs. Some of our students are already going back to school! River Ambassadors will be wrapping up their final projects to present this upcoming Saturday! 

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River Ambassador Eco Exhibit!

The day finally came yesterday, Saturday August 17th, to present our River Ambassador Eco Exhibit! Throughout the summer, River Ambassadors chose their favorite photos to represent their experience throughout the program. Each Ambassador provided a caption for their photo, as well as some items to showcase what they do from day to day. Our lovely curator Dan designed and created the Exhibit, and we think it came out beautifully! Thank you Dan!

Please come by the Independence Seaport Museum to see all their hard work!

Our Eco Exhibit can be seen right in our River Alive! gallery. 

The theme to our Eco Exhibit is “(well you see) What Had Happened Was...”. A phrase first said by Romeo on the first day of training, it became a fun inside joke for all River Ambassadors! 

River Ambassadors’ friends and families were all invited to join us for the opening of the exhibit. 

Thank you to all of you who support our River Ambassadors and this program! 

Each River Ambassador gave our audience a presentation of what their photo and the program as a whole meant to them. 

Taniyah!

Kadidia!

Brianna! 

Mara!

Carmen!

Andy!

Antonee! 

Jose!

Germilus!

Isaiah!

Nevaeh!

Romeo!

Aretha!

Jaden!

Kennedy!

Roxan!

Bryanna!

And Naseem!

As well as celebrating the River Ambassadors, we all said goodbye to AWE Fellow Kayla as she heads back to college! Kayla has been involved with ISM for the past 5 years, and this summer she joined us again as our AWE Fellow. She has played such a great part in helping supervise, educate and organize our River Ambassadors over the summer. We will miss you Kayla! Thank you for everything! 

We also began to say our goodbyes to Mayci, who will be leaving to pursue her master’s in Environmental Science at Villanova. The River Ambassador program was handed to Mayci three years ago, and she has done a standup job of making it a fun, enriching program. We have Ambassadors who have been with her all three years, which proves how incredible she really is. We will miss you Mayci!

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Last Wednesday, all Riverways interns gathered for their final exchange at Glen Foerd on the Delaware. Bartram’s Garden, Urban Promise and Independence Seaport Museum teens all gave presentations of what went on in the course of their summer, and combined all their photos to make unique collages. After lunch, the rain set aside and we were all able to get out on boats! It was a very successful day and we look forward to next summer’s exchanges! 

Glen Foerd hosted us in this beautiful, historic mansion! 

Everyone gathered around for each other’s presentations. 

Our River Ambassadors start off their presentation discussing their daily duties, such as giving lab programs in the Citizen Science Lab and Drive Thru Science window. 

It was fun to tour the mansion!

After presentations, Ambassadors split off into groups to create their collages. Their collages were made of photos collected over previous exchanges, as well as journal entries. 

After lunch, everyone got to get on row boats or kayaks! It was much cooler on the water.

River Ambassadors Aretha and Kadida hanging out in a tandem. 

It was a great summer! Thank you to Urban Promise and Bartram’s Garden for an insight of your programs. And a huge shout out to Joanne for getting us all together! Until next time! 

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Last week, our River Ambassadors braved some storms with Urban Promise and Bartram’s Garden at Palmyra Cove Nature Park. We got there just in time do some fun activities, such as canoeing, hiking and learning different ways to help our watershed. It began to storm right in time for lunch! At the moment we were all ready to eat some pizza, the lights went out! To quote the Ambassadors, “it felt like camping!” 

Later on in the week, the River Ambassadors hosted our River Basin CleanUp! Ambassadors teamed up with volunteers in rowboats and kayaks to help clean up the basin. The most unique and largest find was a rotting public trash can! 

“When we visited Urban Promise, and we did a couple of things. We walked around the woods, went canoeing and did group activities. I believed it was a fun experience. Even though it started raining badly and we had to rush inside, we all still managed to unite and have fun together.” Amairani 

Our group of volunteers and River Ambassadors pose with all their collected trash from the river basin!

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Introducing the rest of our Ambassadors!

As we head into August, we would like to finally introduce the other half of our River Ambassadors. It’s been a crazy month of July, full of field trips, fishing, water testing, mussel and wetland maintenance, and more! 

“My name is Kennedy. I was born on January 25 of 2003. I have always been known for having an energetic and outgoing personality. I love a good joke thus enjoy laughing. To be honest, I laugh at anything. I always try to make time for my family, friends, and myself of course. My favorite activities are volleyball, cheer, and I enjoy reading a good book. I am an aspiring criminal defense lawyer who desires to travel across the world. leaving behind a memorable name for myself. To talk more about myself. I am a strong young woman who takes pride in herself, and what I have made of myself so far. And I plan to continue to strive for my goals.”

“My name is Nevaeh and I am in 11th grade now. I like flowers. And I am happy to be a River Ambassador.”

“Hi my name is Jose and I am going into 10th grade next year. My favorite subject is History, and I am looking forward to the rest of the summer.”  

“ Hi, I am Kadidia and I’m a second year river ambassador. I wanted to participate in this program again because I enjoyed the experiences and the people I had worked with before. I enjoy learning about new things especially within the science and history subjects and I hope to become a pharmaceutical scientist in the future.”

Romeo is another one of our returning River Ambassadors! He will be a senior in high school this upcoming year. We are happy to have him back. He is definitely our resident goof ball. 

This is Carmen’s first year as a River Ambassador, but she has experience with ISM an an EAGLE. She is always eager to try things out! If the camera is pointed at her, she is always ready with a big smile. 

Andy is another of our returning River Ambassadors! We are thrilled to have him back. He will also be a senior in high school this upcoming year. You can always catch him playing Pokemon Go! during down time. 

Aretha is a Returning Ambassador and an upcoming senior. She is a hard worker and always on her A game. We are excited to have her back. She is a great team leader and gets her peers to work! 

This is Bryanna’s first year as a River Ambassador, though she is a previous EAGLE. She is incredibly bright and adventurous. She doesn’t seem to mind to get in the water and mud! 

Taniyah is also one of our returning River Ambassadors! She is very sweet and eager to have fun. We have fully enjoyed having her join us again this summer! She always has the cutest hairstyles. 

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Last week, River Ambassadors hosted their own exchange for Bartram’s Garden and Urban Promise here at the Independence Seaport Museum. It was a packed day, full of over 30 Riverways interns. 

“On July 25th, 2019,

An exchange program between Independent Seaport Museum, Bartram’s Garden, and Urban Promise took place. From this picture, we were at the ISM learning about the history of the Delaware River. Our partners were given a task to clean the river as they took action in our interactive screen game. In the end, the river was purified and aquatic life was brought back by the powers of many who took action in the cleaning.

It was their first-time experience rowing in a kayak, we all had fun struggling to move around at first. Some were having fun splashing with water, while others enjoyed every bit of time they had on a kayak. Overall, the time we spent with each other on the water was not long but the memories will remain forever.” Andy 

“Last week we held our exchange which was very chill and nice. Bartram’s Garden and Urban Promise came to our museum and experienced what we (as river ambassadors) do at Seaport. It was very cool showing them how we go on about our day, with water testing, kayaking/rowing and even fishing!” Aretha 

It was a packed house!

“This picture is a moment captured from the ISM exchange. The sites, Urban Promise and Bartram’s Garden, came to the Independence Museum to join our River Ambassadors in doing activities including kayaking, modified water testing, and fishing!” Bryanna

 That following Saturday, River Ambassadors helped our community and volunteers label storm drains around Queen Village. Ambassadors split off into groups to make sure each storm drain was labeled on our map. All together, we labeled over 60 drains! Each label informs the public about storm drains, and how any illegal dumping leads straight into our river. 

River Ambassadors Andy and Naseem working together to label a storm drain! 

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A New Perspective of Philly

With the beginning of August, the Ambassadors continued their normal routine of learning new lesson plans, checking on our freshwater mussels, taking care of our wetland plants, and teaching visitors. On the 1st of August, they traveled over to Bartram’s Garden, located in the Kingsessing neighborhood of Philadelphia, for their next Riverways Exchange. Kadidia and Kenaizha reflect on their experiences that day, below:

“On Wednesday, we had visited Bartram's Garden. The area had seemed very different from where the Seaport Museum is. It’s more secluded and has more of a green space [than the Museum]. During our time there, we were able to go rowing to collect samples for water testing. Their water is much more polluted than ours, and their way of water testing is much more complicated. After that, we were able to go on a tour of the garden and learned a bit about its history and how it was used by the inhabitants of the area.”

“[At Bartram’s Garden] we learned a lot about what the other interns do there and the history of the garden. There were some similarities of what we River Ambassadors do [and what] the students at Bartram's Garden do, such as row boats and do water testing. Some differences we’ve learned from them is their water testing is a lot more accurate and difficult, since they go to different parts of the water to test, save the water samples, and use high quality water testing tools. Another difference [between] their area [and] the Independence Seaport Museum is [that Bartram’s] is a less populated area--it is an urban area but with a very rural feeling.”

While going out on the Schuylkill River, the Ambassadors were also exposed to some major differences between our part of the Delaware River and this tributary. At Bartram’s, they were able to explore more of the area than we usually get an opportunity to at the Seaport in our protected basin. However, they were still confronted with industry on the river banks, as Bartram’s looks directly across the river at the oldest (still operational) oil refinery in the United States (hence why the water was so much more polluted!). 

However, they also got a glimpse of how nature persists in urban and industrial landscapes, when a young doe made her way onto the banks.

They also had a few fun experiences in the Garden itself, taking a ride on the engraved swing, trying out some mouth-numbing berries, and collecting rocks along the Schuylkill’s banks. 

Want to hear about our Ambassadors’ trip to Glen Foerd last week? Stay tuned for another blog post coming soon!

[riverambassadors]

Mussels, Day Trips, and Storm Drain Marking Events

The Ambassadors second full work week was certainly a busy one!

The Ambassadors had the opportunity to explore the nearby parks in Old City and South Philly, including the Independence National Historical Park, Spruce Street Harbor Park, and Washington Avenue Green.

They wrote in their field journals about each site, documenting the animals they saw, the activities people were participating in, and the differences between them. They also reflected on how these green spaces compare to those in their own neighborhood.

Independence National Historical Park: “This area is greener than my community green space. At my green space, there are swings and just a playground in general, with lots more people.”

Spruce Street Harbor Park: “This place is a chill-out zone, for activities and fun. It is more lively and advanced [than my community green space].”

Washington Avenue Green: “[This place is] very, very quiet. It’s more isolated and more in touch with nature.”

When the Ambassadors weren’t exploring the nearby green spaces, they were also helping to take care of our freshwater mussels. Nevaeh describes our experience of measuring the mussels and collecting data below:

“Today, me, Antonee’, Kadidia, Mayci, and Tilea had to measure the [freshwater] mussels [from PDE]. It turned out to be a rainy day, and I did not have any change of clothes. The mussels were in the range of 30-50mm [long]. Turns out I’m not going to be eating mussels after today. Some [of them] ended up dead (may they rest in peace), and the rest seem to be getting bigger by the month. When the weather became worse, we head back inside and sadly left Mayci on her own due to her being the only one that brought a spare outfit. I am still a little bit wet, but other than that, my day went well. Ok byeeee.”

To wrap up their week, the Ambassadors hosted a storm drain labeling event with materials provided by the Philadelphia Water Department. By the end of the event, the Ambassadors marked 78 drains. Romeo describes his experience marking storm drains on the 21st:

“[On Saturday] We did the storm drain labeling and luckily and unluckily, it didn’t rain. All in all, l think we labeled like 60 or so drains, which was pretty cool. I was in a group with Mayci, Shawn, and Aretha and we got the job done because we had to. At first, I was putting on the labels, but then I got tired, and then I got hungry and was jaywalking like it was no one’s business. But I am writing this, so I am obviously alive, and I didn’t get hit, so I think I did alright--everyone else who participated in this event did alright too. A job is a job and it got done and no one was hurt so it was a-okay.”

Want to keep up with our Ambassadors? Be sure to check in later this week for Antonee’ and Aretha’s experiences this summer!