Yesterday, on a beautiful September day at Berwick’s Briar Creek Park, six school districts came together for Water Education Day. Organized by the Columbia County Conservation district, 8th graders came to learn about Water through 7 different stations, varying from an amazing dramatic musical production, to fish ecology presented by the DEP, groundwater models, art, and more scientific exploration. My core task was to document the mandalas created out of collected natural materials. They were stunning and the students really seemed to enjoy creating them. Heather Almer, watershed specialist, said about them, “No glue, no plastics, no petroleum products -just stuff that can blow away and decompose…and yet so beautiful!”

Some of the volunteers named the plant species for the student artists and explained the value of native species vs invasive ornamentals to the students as well.