River outing teaches Franklin Elementary kids about nature

By MERRILL BALLASONE
mbalassone@modbee.com

last updated: April 11, 2008 07:56:27 AM

Franklin Elementary School students learned Thursday that "mugwort" is not an evil character from a Harry Potter novel. The 160 fourth-grade students planted the shrub, along with wild roses, native grasses and valley oak saplings, near the confluence of the Tuolumne River and Dry Creek as a community service project.

The project near Beard Brook Park was the final stage of the school's yearlong participation in the "Trekking the Tuolumne" program, which has brought about 1,000 elementary students from Modesto, Hughson and Keyes this year on field trips to the Tuolumne River and the Great Valley Museum's Tuolumne River watershed exhibit.

The program is in its second year of a three-year $200,000 grant from the state Department of Water Resources that has helped expand its reach. The program is run by an environmental advocacy group called the Tuolumne River Trust.

"The more we come down and use it, the more people will understand how lucky we are to have the Tuolumne River in our back yard," said Meg Gonzalez, director of outreach education with the Tuolumne River Trust.

By the end of the grant's third year, more than 100 teachers will be trained to use the river as an educational tool and students from 30 schools will have completed community service projects related to the river, Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said she hopes to bring the program to Ceres and Waterford schools next year.

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