The Shell Creek Watershed runs right through the town of Newman Grove, NE. The creek is an important water source for this agricultural community, and in recent years, farmers and local conservationists had noticed an increase in flooding, pollution and eroding. To better understand and potentially reverse these harmful changes, the town of Newman Grove relies on an unlikely group: a team of wader-clad, science-loving students from Newman Grove High School.
In 2002 teachers Mark Seier and Gene Wissenburg took a group of students to the Shell Creek Watershed to collect macroinvertebrates as a way to study water quality in the creek. The combination of hands-on science learning and good old fashioned playing in the mud kept the students engaged and wanting more. They went back to school and told their friends about the experience and suddenly more students wanted to get involved. The teachers realized that the project was the perfect way to expose teens to important issues in their community in a way that taught valuable lessons in science and responsibility.
The Shell Creek Watershed project has evolved into a summertime volunteer program during which high school students spend two days in each May, June, July and August, wading through the creek and testing the water and soil for various factors that can contribute to erosion and water quality degradation. Monitoring the creek annually allows conservationists at the Shell Creek Watershed Improvement Group to take appropriate measures that helps protect the water source. The student scientists wanted to understand how the Shell Creek results compared to other watersheds, so they ran the same tests on the same days at the nearby Beaver Creek watershed in the Olson Nature Preserve. They learned that due to different environmental and geological situations, Shell Creek’s erosion pattern was unique to that particular watershed.