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MEADVILLE, Pa.  – May 10, 2010 – Creek Camp, a residential environmental science camp for students entering 10th or 11th grade, will take place this July at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa. Campers can choose from two nearly identical sessions: Session I (July 11-16) or Session II (July 18-23).

Now in its fifth year, Creek Camp is hosted by Creek Connections, a watershed education outreach program of Allegheny College.

Most activities take place in and around the waterways of French Creek, the most biodiverse stream in Pennsylvania.  Campers perform water chemistry tests, collect aquatic macroinvertebrates, canoe French Creek, snorkel for freshwater mussels and search for reptiles and amphibians in and around the water.

“A typical day at Creek Camp is far from typical,” said Laura Branby, Creek Connections field educator. “And with such a small group, there are rarely more than one or two students from any one high school. In fact, teens from Costa Rica often attend one of the camps.”

All activities are hands-on and led by Allegheny College students and staff as well as environmental professionals.

Each session is limited to twelve campers, who arrive on Sunday afternoon. Throughout the week, they participate in on- and off-campus activities, including a student-designed research project and visits to many locations in the French Creek watershed.

By the end of camp, students are very familiar with the flora and fauna of French Creek.  “They’ve been wet, they’ve been dirty, and they wouldn’t have it any other way,” said Branby.

Creek Camp concludes with a luncheon for campers and their parents, including a presentation of the research project and a slideshow of the week’s activities.

For more information, contact Laura Branby at (724) 822-3290.

About Creek Connections

A watershed education outreach program of Allegheny College, Creek Connections works with K-12 students throughout the school year to help them understand the importance of healthy waterways in their community—local, nationwide and global. Their community’s “backyard” waterways are the laboratories where the students perform chemical tests of the creek, search for aquatic macroinvertebrates and understand the many connections between their actions and the waterway’s health, between their waterway and the many rivers and lakes in the area, and between the health of the waterway and their own health.  Creek Camp started as a natural extension of Creek Connections’ school year program.  It is an in-depth, up-close, hands-on experience for high school students to study an exceptional waterway.  In the process, they also get to know Allegheny College and meet representatives of a variety of environmental-related career fields.

MEDIA NOTE:

The best time for media coverage for this event changes daily with the camp calendar.  Please contact Laura Branby at (724) 822-3290 for more information.