Posted 5/16/01 NBHS student expeditionary team embarks on Sunrise River journey By Jason Sileo A handful of North Branch High School students will embark on a mini-Lewis and Clark expedition down the ënorth branchí of the Sunrise River in search of enlightenment, environmental awareness and, above all, fun this week. Nine students will pack themselves and three daysí worth of supplies into a pod of canoes today (Wednesday) on a mission to document the riverís health and chemistry. The project is the brain child of one Tom Anderson, North Branch, director of the Warner Nature Center at Marine. The project is being funded by a $3,700 grant from The Chisago County Water Project ó the funds covered a similar expedition of Chisago Lakes students down the south branch of the Sunrise last week. Anderson said, to his knowledge, it is the first such trip of its kind along the namesake of the city of North Branch. The North Branch students will spend three days on the river after putting in at Webber, a small community in Isanti County, Wednesday morning. The troupe is scheduled to pass through the city of North Branch sometime Thursday morning, and Anderson said he hopes to reach the St. Croix River north of Sunrise by tripís end. The kids will spend their time recording data from the river, including phosphate, dissolved oxygen and nitrate levels above various inlets, and suspended solids in the waters, and record their findings in standard scientific form. Some of the data collected will be forwarded to scientists at the St. Croix Watershed Research Station for further analysis. Each student will also maintain a journal of their experiences for their own purposes. The results of the testing, wildlife observation, and the recording of human impedance on the riverscape, will be collated and forwarded to the Chisago County Board of Commissioners in time. Anderson said he hopes the project becomes an annual endeavor whereby each new group of observers can review findings, make new discoveries and compare the work of previous explorers to their own. ìThe idea is to make this an expedition,î Anderson said. ìTo go to a new frontier.î By the time of their return to civilization late this week, he said, ìI really believe theyíll have had some lifelong memories.î The trip is scientific on one hand, ëspiritualí on the other, but always educational. Students (Anderson hopes) will work as teams without prodding, bond with one another as well as their natural environment, and learn more than can ever be explained about how our environment works around us, with us, and often in spite of us. ìWeíre trying to get them to understand that their watershed, and the health of that watershed, is critical to the health of their own community,î Anderson said. ìThis whole business of how we divorce the natural world from our own, human world, is a problem.î ìWe tend to not look at the natural world as a classroom, as part of our own home as often as we should,î he said. The trip is intended to promote ìan awareness and an appreciation of how life is intimately connected with the natural world,î Anderson said. ìI just want them to know itís out there, and if they grow to love it óÝtheyíll take care of it.î The North Branch students were nominated for inclusion in the journey by their respective classroom teachers, Anderson said. Most have an interest in biology and in the environment, are highly motivated to learn and who ìgravitate toward this kind of work,î Anderson said. ìIím really astounded by what good thinkers they are,î he said of the students. ìAnd I donít know why our community, as adults, we donít look at them as resources more often than we do.î Joining Anderson are North Branch high school science teacher Tom McLaughlin, and middle school science teacher Pat Lamwers. Students scheduled to make the trip are: seniors Anika Walz, Kyla Stegmeier, Jay Clawson, Angelica Bacher, Sarah Wischow and Link Swanson; junior Rachel Johnson, and sophomores Nicole Swanson and Katie Leehy. The students are along by choice, Anderson said, ìso all the energy is coming from an optimistic and enthusiastic standpoint.î The kids will canoe, observe and record by day, bond by the campfire by night. ìTrips like this break down some of the barriers,î Anderson said. ìYou get away from the pretentiousness, from how you have to look and appear and all that.î Anderson hopes the bonding and the team work will happen naturally, as he doesnít plan to do much prodding to those ends. He said the expeditions surroundings practically guarantee cooperation and a better sense of understanding for the students ó of themselves, of one another and of their concrete and steel worlds. ìThe great leaders of the world should meet around a campfire,î he said. ©Post Review