Sullivan County Conservation District in New Hampshire is a great example of a group putting their Emriver Em2 stream table to use in multiple ways. Thank you to Dawn Dextraze from Sullivan County Conservation District for providing wonderful stories, photos and videos for this post.
A big part of what they do with their stream table is loaning it to schools. They transport the model, set it up, give the teachers a tutorial on using and maintaining it, and teach an introductory lesson on it. A curriculum was created for Vermont and New Hampshire schools. A middle school group that was assisting their town to assess culverts designed different kinds and sizes of culverts and made them with a 3D printer. They then tested them on the stream table to see how much sediment flowed through them and if they would allow for fish and wildlife passage. They wrote a report and demonstrated their findings to the town selectman. This was done at a public event for the community to learn about watersheds. This same school trains 7th grade students to teach stream table lessons to 4th grade students.
They take their stream table to Drinking Water and Watershed Festivals in the state teaching hundreds of kids in a day about healthy streams and erosion prevention. At these events, new students come to the table every 15-20 minutes or so over the course of five hours.
Summer camps use the stream table in a couple different ways. A STEM camp uses it for engineering. The students visit a historic mill and consider the dam, water flow detour, and river below and tried to replicate it on the stream table using Legos. Another summer program used Legos to create a system of locks on the stream table.
They would like to lead a stream table training for conservation commissions and similar organizations, so they can use the table in their towns. One conservation commission wanted to use the table at the County Fair. They would like for the Department of transportation to use the table too.
They have also used the stream table at teacher trainings and watershed workshops.
We love the great work our stream table users are doing. We look forward to seeing even more ways Sullivan County Conservation District use their stream table in the coming years.
Little River will soon be making our debut at the National Association of Conservation Districts annual meeting, which is in Las Vegas this year. Find us Conservation Expo in the silver room at NACD 2020 to learn more about the Emriver Em2 stream table and our other models too. We’re at booth 124.
