Colfax High School biology students observe Earth Week

By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX  —  Students in Mark Mosey’s biology classes at Colfax High School observed Earth Week with a variety of activities leading up to Earth Day on April 22.

Members of the Global Science class presented their Earth Week projects on the banks of Eighteen Mile Creek April 20.

The Global Science class is mostly seniors but also a few juniors, Mosey noted.

“They’ve been working on it for a couple of weeks. We wanted to bring attention to how important wetlands are and all aspects of wetlands,” he said.

The students set up displays along the banks of the creek related to various plants and animals that are important to a wetland habitat, including fur-bearing animals, waterfowl, turtles, cattails and wetlands in general.

The day before, on April 19, students in the Global Science class visited Kenny Salwey (known as The Last River Rat and author of “Tales of a River Rat”) and canoed the backwaters of the Mississippi.

“The kids loved it. They learned a lot,” Mosey said.

Mosey’s students also were planning to do trash pickup along state Highway 170 as part of their Earth Week observance.

“I tested the kids, too,” Mosey said, referring to the Global Science students who had set up their wetlands displays along Eighteen Mile Creek.

“I said, ‘here, throw this in the creek,’ and they said ‘what?!?!?!’ They know better,” he said with a twinkle in his eye and noting that he had been holding some trash at the time.

Water quality is another project on which Colfax High School biology students have been devoting their time.

“The advanced biology kids are doing a fourth-quarter project on water quality. They have to do a photo log, and they walk around their neighborhood and look for ways that land use can impact the quality of water,” Mosey said.

“A lot of them took pictures of trash. And they said they were surprised at the number of beer cans they found. They are recognizing the importance of (disposing of trash in the proper way),” Mosey said.

Lisa Bragg-Hurlburt, director of the Colfax Public Library, also toured the displays along the banks of Eighteen Mile Creek April 20.

“This is a neat event. It is beautiful down here,” she said.

In addition to viewing the displays set up by the students, Bragg-Hurlburt invited them to the public library.

In honor of Earth Week, Hurlburt had set up displays at the library of books on ecology and environmental health, including “Meadowlark Economics” by Colfax resident Jim Eggert. Students were invited to come to the library to see the displays and to enjoy some refreshments.

Earth Day, celebrated on April 22, was founded in 1970 by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin. Senator Nelson, a Democrat, was born in Clear Lake in 1916 and died July 3, 2005.

Nelson served as a Wisconsin senator until he was elected governor of Wisconsin in 1958. He ran successfully for the United States Senate in 1962 and served in the Senate until 1981.

In September of 1995, Gaylord Nelson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his environmental work.

Earth Day is celebrated in nearly 200 countries every year.

Wetland trapping

The wetland trapping display noted that wetlands can be habitat for bobcat, fisher, otter, coyotes, fox, muskrat, raccoon, opossum, skunk and snowshoe hare.

The students had displayed several pelts, including raccoon, gray squirrel, gray fox and mink.

Tyler Snyder, Jacob Larson and Austin Dressel put together the wetland trapping display.

“We all had to pick something to do with wetlands. We picked trapping. We’ve got the types of traps, and the time period you can trap certain animals,” said Austin, who traps fishers and raccoons.

“I have trapped fisher for the last three years. Every year I have gotten a tag. I got a big one this year (north on M). It was 45 inches,” he said.

Fishers sometimes prey on domestic animals, such as chickens, Austin noted.

Trapping is important for the conservation of the wetlands, and controlling the population of muskrats and beavers is beneficial, he said.

“If they are over-populated, they can dam up a creek. They can change an entire wetland,” Austin said.

Waterfowl

The waterfowl display included several ducks and a goose.

Isaac Lee, Ben Christianson, Hunter Lieffort, Zach Meyer and Jacob Steinke put together the waterfowl display.

The most common duck in this area is the mallard, and the geese are very common as well and are nesting right now, they said.

Waterfowl rely on wetlands for their habitat, and while over-population could create problems for a wetland, ducks and geese tend not to over-populate. Geese can become a problem in municipal parks if there are too many of them, but that’s not a problem for Colfax, members of the group noted.

Turtles

A variety of turtles populate wetlands in Wisconsin, including snappers, painted turtles and wood turtles.

All of the turtles on the display put together by Kassandra Jackson, Taylor Rice and Chris Breezee are native to Wisconsin.

One of the turtles on the display was the stinkpot turtle.

“It is the world’s smallest turtle. It is the size of a penny,” Kassandra said.

“They are really small, and they are dark colored, so it is hard to pick them out when they are at the bottom (of a river or stream),” she said.

“You’d maybe have to take binoculars and look down at the ground to detect them,” Chris said.

The list of turtles on the display indicated that the ornate box turtle is endangered, and the wood turtle is threatened.

In fact, many of the turtles on the list are of a “special concern.”

Painted turtles and snapping turtles, on the other hand, are common.

“I have enjoyed turtles my entire life, and they are important to the wetland because they eat bugs. We had to do this project, so I decided to do turtles because then I could do a project on something I like!” Kassandra said.

The snapping turtles, she noted, have an aggressive temperament, and they also live for a very long time and are difficult to kill.

Cattails

One surprising fact about cattails is that you can make different kinds of food out of the roots, such as cattail pancakes and chips.

Lynsey Lloyd, Priscila Hakes and Brooke Seehaver put together the cattail display.

“We were going to try to find some and make something for our display, but they are not really in season now,” Brooke said.

Cattails grow in wetlands and ditches, and some can reach a height of eight or ten feet.

They are important to the wetland environment because they indicate that the wetland is healthy and is doing well, Priscila said.

Wetlands

In northern Wisconsin, there are 855,000 acres of wetlands, or eight percent of the land mass.

Wetlands are important because they are habitat for many different species of plants and animals.

The wetlands display was put together by Andrew Harmon, Mason Harmon and Brady Simonson.

“If we lost the wetlands, we would lose many critters,” Brady said.

A wetland is a natural way to wick off the excess water if there is a flood, and wetlands act as a filter for rain and stormwater run-off, Brady said.