On December 4th, I was able to attend the Franklin County Stream Team Training with some other members of the ALLARM team. Naisha Gaur ‘27, Kristin Houston ‘27, Max Carfrey ‘26, Volunteer Monitoring Specialist Isabel Ruff, and Staff Scientist Jill Arriola also took part in this experience. This training, initially scheduled for October 5th, was the result of hours of preparation this semester in order to provide the best experience possible for the volunteers.
Preparation for this event included lots of practice with the Stream Team Manual and getting familiar with the parameters volunteers will be using: conductivity, PH, and Nitrate-Nitrogen, as well as the process of collecting samples, calibrating the Lamotte Tracer PockeTester and measuring turbidity, stage, and water temperature.
The hours of practice proved to be very worth. The volunteers were first given a presentation to get oriented to Stream Team before splitting into different groups to try the kit themselves, guided by ALLARM staff. We were all very well prepared to answer any questions regarding the monitoring process, and the event was a huge success.
As is the case with any community event (as I’m discovering), the volunteers were definitely the highlight. It was very exciting to see a group of people so enthusiastic about helping the watershed and building a community. Everyone was very receptive to the training, and we all look forward to seeing what amazing data these volunteers collect.
Max Carfrey ‘26 had a similar opinion: “The volunteers we worked with were incredibly passionate, asked great questions, and overall brought a lot of positivity to the training. I was very lucky to get such a great crew, and this workshop allowed me to utilize the skills and knowledge I have been acquiring over the past couple of semesters to teach our volunteers about how to monitor the health of their local streams.”
And this is what Naisha Gaur ‘27 took away: “I loved seeing the volunteers get so excited to perform the tests. It was also admirable to see how some volunteers have such busy lives with packed schedules, but they still make time for water quality monitoring. It was a great experience to interact with volunteers and improve my communication skills, growing my confidence in the ALLARM protocol in the process.”
It seems like everyone involved in the training was able to take something valuable away from this experience, which is a great sign of a successful training!
Looking ahead for the new Franklin Stream Team, they can expect a joint training on how to upload their amazing data directly into the Chesapeake Data Explorer sometime in January. This will be an event open to all Stream Team members, so everyone interested should stay tuned!
