Junior Park Ranger Camp: SPREE’s First Ever Camp for Middle-schoolers ONLY! July 13th-17th

We’re excited to share that SPREE hosted our very first camp just for middle schoolers, and it was a blast! Our theme was “Junior Park Ranger Camp,” and we had so much fun getting to know an awesome group of campers. This week was all about exploring the exciting world of conservation, including roles like Park Rangers and Naturalists. Through hands-on activities, fun challenges, and teamwork, our campers really got to dive into what it’s like to work in conservation. 

On Monday, campers were introduced to all about what being a Park Ranger and a Naturalist entails, while learning about how the roles overlap and why it is important to have people in these roles.

We kicked off our week by getting into the river for Critter Crawl! Before going in, we talked about why conservationists such as Park Rangers and Naturalists might want to study the river. We learned that the living things in the water provide insight into a waterway’s and habitat’s health – the macroinvertebrates we catch are considered biotic indicators. These living things all have different sensitivities to pollution and water quality, so depending on what we catch, we can get a good idea of the health of the waterway. After catching many amazing macroinvertebrates such as crawdads and damselfly nymphs, campers came up to continue our discussion about Park Rangers and some of their roles in parks. Campers even designed their very own informational signs they would put up around Johnson-Habitat Park to educate visitors on things they should know about it! 

Our day continued by diving into what a Naturalist or Environmental Educator is, and the importance of environmental education being available to everyone. Campers learned about identifying plant and animal species, including those that are native and non-native to the area. After some time pulling invasive plants, such as cheatgrass and common mullein, campers learned the ins and outs of bird identification and worked on their very own bird surveys. We found 7 types of birds on our adventure! 

We wrapped the day up by creating our very own Junior Park Ranger code that campers promised to follow this week and for years to come! 

Tuesday was all about orienteering and survival basics! Denver Parks and Recreation visited camp and gave us a very important and fun lesson on orienteering. We learned about what DPR staff does, talked about survival and navigation, and learned about how magnets and earth’s magnetic fields work. This all culminated in learning about how to use a compass and we practiced using them with some navigation challenges in the park.

Then, we went over some survival skills with campers and learned about important topics such as what to bring with us when we explore the outdoors, what important tools we can use to ensure our safety, and the warning signs of hypothermia and hyperthermia. Campers were challenged to come up with packing lists for unique survival scenarios and got to learn about the “rule of 3” in survival situations.
We also discussed how critters in the river survive in their habitat, and ended the day by learning about paracord and making our very own keychains out of it! 

On Wednesday, campers were introduced to the concept of stewardship. After discussing potential human impacts on the environment, campers came up with amazing solutions to challenge scenarios, such as how to avoid small pieces of trash from a picnic going into the river. Students also learned about food webs and how important they are to maintaining a healthy ecosystem, and the importance of trash getting to the right place and recycling is. We ventured back to the topic of native species, the importance of protecting them, and made our very own Rocky Mountain wildflower seed bombs and pressed flower bookmarks to appreciate the beauty of nature! 

Next, we had additional guests come from another environmental education non-profit, ELK (Environmental Learning for Kids), come to teach us all about fishing. We learned all about fishing poles, fishing etiquette and skills, and a bit about some fish that we could potentially catch in Colorado. They brought all kinds of gear for us to borrow and we had a great time fishing in Overland pond. We had a few bites, but no one was able to reel anything in this time!

After a picnic lunch in the park, our day continued with learning some basics about boating and we went rafting on the pond- some of the campers got especially lucky and got to see a beaver swimming in the pond along with us!

The day continued with a visit to the South Platte river, which flows right alongside the pond. We learned a new way to check for water quality- with abiotic (chemical) tests and scientific observations which included pH, temperature, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, and phosphate and nitrate measurements. Despite the water levels being low, we still found the river to be doing pretty well!

We wrapped up our activities with an awesome critter crawl session in the pond. The campers really enjoyed exploring in a new body of water! We caught so many crawdads and a few new critters that we haven’t seen in the South Platte. We got to compare and contrast the 2 similar habitats by analyzing the creatures that live there.

From fishing to boating and, of course, critter crawl, campers had such a fun day at a new place!