Category: For Kids

Discover Aquatic Life in Winter

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Winter in North Carolina means shorter days and colder nights, a time when you might be spending more time indoors or bundling up to brave the drop in temperature.  But what does winter mean for our aquatic animal neighbors? You might be surprised to discover that the winter is still an active time for many critters. 

Macroinvertebrates

Water gets cold more slowly than air, which means fish, macroinvertebrates, and other aquatic creatures remain active even as the air temperature drops. You may still find mayfly, dragonfly, stonefly and other macroinvertebrates when sampling in the winter. Some people even prefer to look for these tiny animals in this season because they move slower and spend more time hiding under leaves and rocks.

Stoneflies overwinter as aquatic nymphs and continue growing even as water temperatures approach freezing. (photo courtesy of thecatchandthehatch.com)

Get involved: Macroinvertebrates are important water quality indicators and can help us assess stream health. Join or create an NC Stream Watch group to collect and submit macroinvertebrate data to a statewide citizen science effort! To learn more about the importance of clean water for macroinvertebrates, check out this video by the town of Chapel Hill’s stormwater department that talks about macroinvertebrates and dissolved oxygen. 

Salamanders

Many salamander species are still active during North Carolina winters. You can spot red-back salamanders, lead-back salamanders, and maybe even the notoriously elusive marbled salamanders under logs in wet woodland areas. They are especially active during warm and rainy winter nights. Marbled salamanders breed in the winter, laying their eggs in ephemeral (temporary) woodland ponds. 

The beautiful Marbled Salamander is the state salamander of North Carolina.

Get Involved: Interested in going winter herping? Check out The Wild Report’s video on going winter salamander hunting in the Piedmont.  download the iNaturalist app to help with species ID and track the salamanders and other animals that you find along the way! If you are a new iNaturalist user, you can reference this previous blog post for some helpful tips and tricks.

Water Birds

Winter is a time that many birds migrate to North Carolina to overwinter. Buffleheads, pied-billed grebes, coots, ring-necked ducks and hooded mergansers are some of the inland waterfowl you might spot on a nearby pond or lake. If you live on the coast, you might spot  gannets, loons and wrens near the shore.  Some bird species even mate and lay eggs in the winter! If you listen closely, you might be able to hear the nasal sounding mating call of a male woodcock on a mild January night. Woodcocks live in shrubby forests and grasslands near water. 

Male buffleheads are easily identified by their large white crown. (photo courtesy of  allaboutbirds.org)

Get Involved: Ready to do some winter birding? Be sure to download the E-Bird app before you go. E-bird allows you to easily track, record, and ID the birds you find. To read more about winter birding in North Carolina, check out this page on the Bird Watcher’s Digest.

These animals need clean water to survive or thrive (like us!) Help protect critters by doing your part to keep stormwater clean.

out of focus lights on rainy weather

Featured Art from Streets to Creeks

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Thank you to all who submitted to our stormwater art contest which ran from August 5th to September 5th. Over the fall and winter months, we will be featuring submissions as our website headers. Maddie, our week 2 winner, took the photo that is featured as our new website background!

Winners will receive CWEP giveaways including a set of reusable straws. Check out our virtual gallery below to see the artwork submissions. 

Below are the announcements of our winners! Congrats to all of you. Scroll through to see photos of the artwork and descriptions from the artists of what inspired their piece.

Streets to Creeks Stormwater Art Competition

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When? August 5-September 5th, 2020

Who? Open to all ages!

To celebrate National Water Quality Month, the Clean Water Education Partnership invites you to create an art piece that shows how you interact with your watershed. A watershed is an area of land that all drains to the same creek, stream, or river. Everyone lives in a watershed!

Your art piece must somehow incorporate the name of the watershed you live in. Type your address into this interactive map to find your watershed.

Or, you can discover your river basin (a larger-scale watershed) by looking at this interactive map.

 Get inspired by a few of these ideas:

  • Use non-toxic sidewalk chalk to draw a watershed message to others in your neighborhood
  • Create a poster with cool facts and photos from your watershed that you can share with others
  • Draw or take a picture of one of your favorite plants or animals in your watershed
  • Make a sculpture out of litter you find in your watershed

A stormwater art installation that doubles as a rainwater harvester (Binford Green Schools Initiative, Chesepeake Bay)

“Protect our Watersheds” art competition submission (Pennsylvania American Water)

 Your art piece can be in any medium you choose as long as you can take a photo of it.

Winners will have a photo of their art piece featured as the homepage header on the CWEP website and receive a CWEP Swag Bag with fun giveaways in the mail. Art will also be used by CWEP to create a set of greeting cards for our fall BioThon competition. 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners will be chosen weekly.

This competition is open to all ages. Children under 13 must have an adult submit their art piece.

Art can be submitted through this google form. If you have any questions please contact Hannah Barg, the CWEP Education and Outreach Coordinator at hbarg@tjcog.org.

The Soak-Spread-Slow Stormwater Song

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If you’re at home in some rainy weather, take a listen to CWEP’s new song to learn about how we can help improve the stormwater!

The bolded words are terms that you can learn more about in future blog posts and social media posts- stay tuned!

What motions can you make up to go along with the lyrics? Feel free to post in the comments on the left.

Stormwater Song Lyrics

Where does the water go

When it falls from the clouds to down below

All that rain eventually

Flows from here into the sea

and we can play a part

to help the rain depart

Acting like a sponge, to soak it up, to soak it up

Stretching out our arms to spread it out, to
spread it out

Moving like a snail to slow it down, to slow it down

These are things we do to help improve

The stormwater

Where does the water flow

When it has nowhere else to go?

All that rain from the roof and street

Goes down the storm drain and to the creek

And we can play a part

To help the rain depart

Because when it rains it pours

but the trees and grass can soak it up

rain barrels for sure

can help collect and spread it out

And if there’s even more

rain gardens can slow it down

These are things we do to help improve

the stormwater

Capture It! Enter Raleigh’s Annual Stormwater Arts Contest

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Are you or someone you know a creative Raleigh student? Help us spread the word about the City of Raleigh’s annual stormwater arts contest! By entering this contest, students explore the powerful intersections of art, messaging, stormwater education, and community engagement. Winners receive a $500 prize and recognition as a 2020 Raleigh Environmental Award Winner. 

Who: 8th-12th grade students in Raleigh area schools

What: a video or artwork entry showing how to reduce stormwater pollution and protect local waterways. Artwork should be designed to fit on a storm drain or rain barrel.

When: submissions are open until February 3rd, 2020.

How: Register here on the City of Raleigh site. This page also has more details about submission requirements.

Need some inspiration? Click here to watch the video entry winner from last year’s contest.

Image result for storm drain artwork Image result for rain barrel art

Image result for storm drain artwork

Above are some examples of creative stormwater messaging painted on storm drains and rain barrels. If you want to make your own storm drain art design, be sure that it fits within the required dimensions (23.5-inch diameter round or 62.5-inch x 14.5-inch rectangular)

Image 1: City of Raleigh website

Image 3: RVA H20 (Richmond, VA) website

Image 4: WLWT5 News (Cincinatti, OH) website

Image 5: City of Lubbock, TX website

Meet the bug that armors itself with shells, rocks and sticks!

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Caddisflies are an ecologically diverse and important group of freshwater insects. Their larvae are sensitive to pollution and for this reason are used  as indicators of water quality. Oxygen concentration and water velocity are important to larvae, as is the chemical content of the water. Caddisflies live most of their lives in the larval state, depending on aquatic habitats to mature to adulthood.

Caddisflies gets creative in the ways they shield themselves from predators. Larvae construct cases, or homes, out of silk woven with sand grains, fragments of wood or twigs, stones, and other materials from their surroundings.

Check out some images below from freshwater insect photographer, Jan Hamrsky:

Case-building caddisfly larva (Anabolia sp.)
Case-building caddisfly larva (Limnephilidae)
Case-building caddisfly larva (Trichoptera)
Case-building caddisfly larva (Trichoptera)
Case-building caddisfly larva (Trichoptera)

Caddisfly larvae spend up to two years in their cases before becoming adults. The cases are so pretty that some artists encourage caddisflies to spin their silk around semiprecious stones so their cases can be used as jewelry.

CWEP loves to use activities about macroinvertebrates to teach about clean water! We sometimes find caddisflies in streams, and at tabling events we let participants craft their own caddisflies.

Check out some images from CWEP @ Carrboro Day: “Make your own Caddisfly” craft!

Capture it! Raleigh’s Upcoming 2019 Stormwater Arts Contest

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In 2018, the City of Raleigh’s 2018 Capture it! Stormwater Arts Contest was a huge success!  This annual contest is an opportunity for students in 8th through 12th grades to capture the importance of stormwater runoff through art and film. This will ultimately bring more awareness to the positive impacts the community can have on the environment by keeping waterways clean! In 2018, winners for three categories were announced at the 11th Annual Environmental Awards this past March. A photo of last year’s rain barrel winners are shown below.

Rain Barrel Finalists 2018[1]

Now…here are the details for the year ahead! Registration is currently open for Raleigh Stormwater’s annual Capture it! Stormwater Arts Contest! 

WHO:
Students in 8th – 12th grades who attend school within the City of Raleigh, Raleigh extra territorial jurisdictions (ETJ), or the utility service area

WHAT:
Create a film or artwork that shows how the community can reduce pollution to Raleigh’s streams and lakes. This brings more awareness to the importance of protecting local waterways by keeping trash and other waste out of storm drains.

THE PRIZE:
Winners in each category will receive a $500 prize and will be recognized at the 2019 Raleigh Environmental Awards for creating a 60-second video or painting/drawing for a rain barrel or storm drain cover.

WHEN: 
Registration is open until Feb. 1, 2019. Submit an entry today.

If you have any more questions, please feel free to contact Carmela Teichman at 919-996-4032 or Carmela.Teichman@raleighnc.gov

We can’t wait to see you there!

 

No Straw November Challenge!

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Millions of plastic straws are being used daily all around the world. Many end up in our waterways where they harm wildlife, impact water quality, and add to pollution. The goal of “No Straw November” is to bring awareness to the many plastic straws that are being used once and then thrown away in a single month. This national campaign challenges people to refuse plastic straws the whole month of November while raising awareness about the dangers of plastic pollution. One plastic straw does not seem like much, but they add up one by one and have damaging effects on the environment. Because plastic does not biodegrade, nearly every piece of plastic ever made still exists. Over time, plastics break into increasingly smaller pieces called microplastics, which ultimately find their way up the food chain and into our seafood and drinking water. Plastic pollution in our waterways is also often mistaken for food by animals like sea turtles, fish, and seals, impacting millions of marine organisms and, human health.strawGlobewMsg1200x475-1024x405Straws are just one of several plastic items that the public thinks are recyclable, yet often are not due to ineffective processes and high costs. Plastic straws contaminate recycling because they are too small to capture and make into new products. Ultimately, straws reduce the value of other recyclables and end up in landfills.

What Can You Do To Get Involved?

Simply request “no straw” at bars & restaurants and share your commitment with others. Encourage your favorite restaurant or bar to only provide straws on request from the customer and to use reusable or naturally compostable options to the plastic straw. Print these forms and hand them out to staff, management, commercial businesses, schools, etc. that use plastic straws.

We also invite all bars and restaurants, to be part of the movement to eliminate plastic pollution from the source. By simply stating on menus “Straws available upon request”, bars and restaurants can be part of the solution.

Here’s How:

  • Provide a straw only when requested by a customer
  • Provide either reusable or naturally compostable straws
  • Or get rid of straws completely

To learn more about this national effort, visit https://thelastplasticstraw.org/. Break the plastic straw habit during November…and beyond!

 

City of Raleigh Capture It! Stormwater Art Contest Open Now!

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Getting Students Interested in Water Quality Through Art and Film

The City of Raleigh Division of Stormwater Management is currently accepting entries for its ‘Capture It! Stormwater Arts Contest’. This is an opportunity for high school students to capture the importance of stormwater runoff through art and film in a way that will bring more awareness to the community about improving the water quality of Raleigh’s streams and lakes.

Students are encouraged to create one of the following to show residents how they can help keep streams clean.

  • A 60-second video;
  • A painting to be placed on a rain barrel; or,
  • A drawing to be used as a stencil for City of Raleigh storm drain covers.

Registration closes Friday, January 26, 2018. Winners in each category will receive a $300 prize, and will be featured at the 2018 Raleigh Environmental Awards. So get out there, make some art, and change your community for the better!

New CWEP Stormwater Video Heading to a Theater Near You this December!

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We are very excited to release our new animated stormwater video that we’ve been working hard on over the last few months! This 30-second version of our full-length video will be shown in theaters across the region this holiday season, so tell your friends: If you’re headed to the movies between December 15th and 29th, grab a seat a little early to catch this ad rolling a few minutes before the previews start!

You can find our full-length videos in both English and Spanish, as well as individual pollutant spots you can use at home, at work, or in the classroom on our Resources page.