Teach Wealth

By Nick Vos-Wein, Hackensack Riverkeeper Project Manager

»HACKENSACK RIVERKEEPER’S Urban Watershed Education Program teaches middle school students how to fi sh. And through fi shing, the students experience the wealth of a personal encounter with their local waterway.

We use games to teach kids about the fi sh that live in their local river or lake. Students conduct a cleanup of their school grounds and affi x a permanent marker to stormdrains that reads, ‘Don’t Dump. Drains to Your River.’ Th ey get on the water with Hackensack Riverkeeper Captain Bill Sheehan and try their hand at water quality testing. Th e fi nal morning is spent learning to cast. Th en they spend the day fi shing. For many, this is their very fi rst time holding a fi shing rod. Over the past decade, we have reached thousands of young people. Kids who live in an environment too often defi ned by pavement and concrete learn that no matter where they live, they are connected to nature. Th ey just need to get out on the water. W

Sky Sight

This January, 850 students from H.B. Lee Middle School in Portland, Oregon became a sturgeon for an hour to conclude the Art For the Sky project, sponsored by Columbia Riverkeeper. Art For the Sky combines art, music, math, history and science and culminates in a gigantic living painting on the school’s athletic field colored and shaped by the living forms of participants.

Riverkeeper-trained fisherman shows off his catch at Wilson Pond in Linden, NJ.

HACKENSACK RIVERKEEPER