Its hard to believe that the Jr. Stewards are already half way through the 7th year of the program. We have 19 kids this year ranging from 4th grade to 9th. Even though there is a lot of years between the oldest and youngest it still works. Parents play an active role in working with their child in learning and exploring new things.
April 7, 2018 – Wyatt Wollam (7th Grade), Fenton, IL
Today, the Jr. Stewards of the Upper Mississippi, went to Rock Creek Eco Center. For this session, we were joined by a very nice woman, Jessica Steines, an Interpretative Naturalist for Clinton County Conservation. She showed us a variety of snakes, turtles, and amphibians native to our area. For example: the Blue Racer, a very quick prairie snake, the Black Rat snake, Bullsnake, an Alligator Snapping turtle, (which is not a native species) and the American toad. She informed us of their ideal habitats, their preferred prey/food, and discussed issues individual species face, such as habitat loss/degradation, changing eco systems, predation by other species, and harm caused by human activity. This was an awesome, informative, and hands-on session, as we were able to touch and hold a few of the creatures. My favorite snake was the Speckled King snake, whose diet consists of rats, mice, other snakes, and the unique ability to kill and eat Rattlesnakes without any harm! It’s also a very beautiful snake. Another favorite, the Tiger Salamander, was very cool, it’s able to breathe through its skin by means of cutaneous gas exchange. The Alligator Snapping turtle looked more like a dinosaur than a turtle, with a truly prehistoric look, especially the face, head, and shell ridges. I had a great time at this session and hope we do more things like it in the future.
Special thanks to Jessica Steines for being so well-informed, enthusiastic about her subject matter, and sharing such a wealth of interesting information with us.
Speckled Kingsnake
May 5, 2018 – Luke (7th grade) and Brady (5th grade) Jennings, Clinton, IA.
Did you know that not all turtles live in water? The Ornate Box turtle is one example of a turtle that lives on land.
On Saturday, May 5th, the Junior Stewards went turtle hunting at the Lost Mound sand prairie, the biggest Ornate Box turtle habitat in Illinois. We had to be careful of UXO (unexploded ordinance) because Lost Mound was formerly a military training site. The purpose of our expedition was to find turtles and see if they had functioning radio trackers on them. The trackers help determine the box turtle population of the sand prairie. Due to habitat loss, Lost Mound is the last sand prairie in Illinois. The box turtle almost disappeared from Illinois, but is now steadily on the rise. The Junior Stewards are proud to have been a part in the restoration efforts and look forward to doing it again next year!
June 2, 2018 – Ethan Brown (9th Grade), Savanna, IL.
The outing for the Jr. Stewards took place at the Spring Lake Resort outside of Savanna. We waded knee-deep into the Mississippi River with dip nets and kitchen strainers to look for aquatic invertebrates. We sifted through weeds and silt and discovered lots of interesting things including: Damselfly, Dragonfly, Mayfly and Caddisfly larvae, Scud (small green shrimp-like invertebrates), Pygmy Backswimmers (tiny tan bugs with red eyes that swim on their backs) and Water Boatmen. We also saw a Common Map Turtle and several elusive frogs. Thank you to Pam Steinhaus for another fun and interesting day!
