Thursday, November 20, 2008

A Menu of Video Journals & Case Studies

1. Video Journal: The Beauty. Some scenes from a day on the St. Croix River. (5 minutes, 33 seconds.)

2. St. Croix River Case Study: The Beast. Removing a bag of trash from an isolated part of the St. Croix River. (5 minutes, 54 seconds.)

3. Mississippi River Case Study: Descending on the shoreline (the first in a four-part series from a Mississippi River Clean-up). Creating a series of staging areas makes for an easier cleanup.

4. Mississippi River Case Study: An uphill battle (the second in a four-part series from a Mississippi River Clean-up). The hard part can be hauling trash up steep terrain.

5. Mississippi River Case Study: The load out (the third in a four-part series from a Mississippi River Clean-up). The junk is hauled from the shoreline, weighed, and loaded for proper disposal.

6. Mississippi River Case Study: Safe extraction (the fourth of a four-part series from a Mississippi River Clean-up). Working from a ravine, we remove one of the safes we've found along the way.

7. KARE 11 News Report: Geotrashing explained. A television story about our project, broadcast by KARE 11 TV in May of 2008.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Caitlyn brings some color to the project!

The winter winds have arrived. Our time on the water is over for 2008. But our river restoration efforts are not over just because the navigation season is over.
This weekend, our grand-daughter Caitlyn came over for a visit (we had a sleepover!), and she told me of a project she was working on for school. The assignment involved creating a poster about something she felt strongly about, and Caitlyn decided her poster would be about keeping our rivers clean.

I was really proud that she wanted to make a picture about something that was important to her grandma and I! We gave her some photographs of junk we had recovered, the tools we use... and of course, a couple of pictures of our waterways in their pristine, beautiful, natural state. She added the photos to her freehand poster, and told me it would be okay if I shared her artwork with you. (The photos she selected are shown to the left. You can click on any poster or photo to enlarge it.)

Sometimes, the important thing is not to have an impact on a place or an issue.
Often, the greater role each of us plays is when something we do has an impact on others.
Like the impact Caitlyn has had on her proud Grandma & Grandpa.