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Hey Volunteers!
Blue Thumb is excited to be a part of an important exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution that kicks off this summer in Oklahoma: Water/Ways. A partnership of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) and state humanities councils, the exhibit is schedule to make stops in Oklahoma at:
- Norman Public Library East:
June 29 - August 18
- Ada Public Library:
August 26 - October 13
- Locust Grove at Ingram’s Custom Rods:
October 21 - December 8
- *Fort Towson:
December 16 - February 9, 2020
- Altus at Museum of the Western Prairie:
February 17, 2020 - April 12, 2020
The Cleveland County Blue Thumb contingency is already working on being a part of Water/Ways when it opens in Norman on June 29, 2019. Be sure that when Water/Ways comes close to your home that you pack up friends and family and experience it. There will also be opportunities for volunteers to have an official role at events. More will come out about this exhibit as it comes closer to your town. Click here to learn more!
*The Heavner State Park location has been changed to Fort Towson*
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Are you on my list?
The list of volunteers who want to help educate Oklahomans about taking care of streams and rivers? As more people learn about Blue Thumb, more people want us to provide activities that teach both children and adults about pollution prevention and sustainable land uses. Just send me an email if you are not receiving information about events where volunteer help is needed. Education hours for volunteers increased over three-fold from spring ’18 to spring ’19. Thank you for your hard work!
Cheryl Cheadle
Volunteer Coordinator
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Greetings from Your Director!
I am excited to introduce the first issue of our volunteer eNewsletter, From the Water’s Edge. This newsletter is the brainchild of Becky Zawalski, Blue Thumb Field Educator. Becky has a passion for supporting Blue Thumb volunteers and a knack for public communication. It is our hope that you will find this newsletter informative and engaging. If you have suggestions for improving the newsletter, please let us know.
A few brief updates:
We are in a holding pattern while we wait for the rain to subside so we can begin our 2019 fish collections. When streams return to normal flow, we will begin fishing in the Central Great Plains Ecoregion. Fish collections are fun and exciting. If you have friends with an interest in streams, please bring them along. If your stream will be fished this summer, your Blue Thumb staff person will communicate with you regarding scheduling. Please keep in mind that the schedule for fish collections is always tentative and may change at the last minute due to changes in weather.
Shellie Willoughby, our GIS Specialist, is developing a Blue Thumb data collection app using Survey 123, an ESRI product. The app will enable volunteers to submit monthly data on mobile devices. Your data will be visible to you immediately and to others via a map viewer after going through our Quality Assurance process. The map viewer will allow volunteers to look at and manipulate their own data, and the data of other volunteers. We will be communicating with you as this tool is developed. If there are specific graphs or data visualizations you would like to see incorporated, please let me know.
I hope you have a wonderful summer. Thank you for all you do on behalf of Blue Thumb.
Rebecca Bond
Blue Thumb Director
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To our Monthly Monitors:
Many of our Blue Thumb sites are in a condition of practically NO FLOW, but have plenty of water in them. This is a result of high water down stream - either a lake or a bigger stream or river that is also high due to the enormous amount of rain that has fallen this spring. If you can approach your monitoring site safely, please go ahead and complete your site activities, collect your sample, and perform your tests. Send us the data, and note the condition of your stream. You can use the notes area to explain that your stream was high, but with little to no observable flow. If you have questions, contact Kim, Candice, or Becky.
With summer months comes hotter weather. Please remember to:
Please take care of (monitor) yourself. Don't get overheated (moisten a bandana and wrap it around your neck). Your safety is more important to us than your results. You are a highly appreciated Citizen Scientist!
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 Education Mini-Workshops
The first Blue Thumb Education Mini-Workshop that you have been hearing about took place in Norman on June 27, 2019. These workshops, designed for current Blue Thumb volunteers, are to help prepare those interested to help Blue Thumb Staff with educational events in your communities. These are not mandatory, but are fun, enlightening, short, and to the point so that volunteers can gain better footing for striking out to educate the masses about stream protection.
Keep an eye out for future workshops coming to your area, and try to attend if this is something that interests you!
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 Blue Thumb Volunteer Trainings
Tulsa:
August 10 (Stream Ecology Education)
August 11 (Stream Monitoring)*
Alva:
October 5 (Stream Ecology Education)
October 6 (Stream Monitoring)*
Locust Grove:
November 2 (Stream Ecology Education)
November 6 (Stream Monitoring)*
*Stream Ecology Education Training is a prerequisite to take this training*
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 Fish Collections were supposed to begin this June, but due to the heavy amounts of rain in May and June, and seeming to continuing into July, the fishing schedule has been put on hold until creeks are back to normal and safe to enter once again. That being said, once collections start, if you would like to help on a fish collection, please let us know! Fish collections typically take all day, beginning with a stream habitat assessment and ending with seineing 400 meters of stream (roughly a quarter of a mile).
Our Fish Collections follow a rotating Ecoregion schedule, with each Ecoregion being fished roughly every 4-5 years. This year, we will be in the Central Great Plains Ecoregion. The following active creeks being sampled for fish this year are:
- Black Bear Creek: Railroad Yard
- Boomer Creek: 3rd Ave
- Boomer Creek: S. Perkins
- Chisholm Creek: 33rd and Western (7/1/2019)
- Chisholm Creek: NW 186th (7/26/2019)
- Coffee Creek: N. Sooner Road (7/15/2019)
- Cow Creek: Hwy 51
- Deer Creek: Coffee Creek Road (7/27/2019)
- Duck Creek: Myers Park
- East Cache Creek: Big Green (7/14/2019)
- Each Cache Creek: Rodgers Lane (7/15/2019)
- Fourmile Creek: Adams Park (7/29/2019)
- Little Deep Creek: Weatherford
- Mustang Creek: Morgan Road (7/9/2019)
- Sanborn-Hazen Lake Creek: Strickland Park
- Spring Creek: Martin Park (7/24/2019)
- Stillwater Creek: Babcock Park
- Tributary to N. Canadian (7/23/2019)
- West Cache Creek (7/11/2019)
- Wolf Creek: Gore Blvd (7/12/2019)
- Wolf Creek: McMahon Soccer Park (7/10/2019)
If you decide to accompany us on a fish collection, but do not monitor a stream, please email us to figure out what time you need to be there. You will also need a pair of close-toed shoes that can get wet/muddy, clothes that can get wet and dirty, sunscreen, a hat, plenty of water, and something for lunch. We can provide you with more information after you speak with us.
Dates may be scheduled or cancelled with little notice depending on rain events.
Bug Collections start July 1st and go until September 15th**. If you are not a stream monitor, but would like to help out with bug collections, we would be happy to have you tag along for any number of collections! Please look at the Blue Thumb Staff Area Map to see whether Kim, Candice, or Becky works in your area before getting into contact with them!
Bug Collections are accompanied by a quarterly Quality Assurance (QA) Session and are largely weather dependent. Dates may be scheduled or cancelled with little notice.
**Due to the heavy amounts of rain in the past few months, bug collections will begin as soon as the streams have been at normal flow levels for at least 10 days.**
 
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  All of these locations have partnered with the Oklahoma County Conservation District and OCC's Soil Health Team to establish permanent education sites for volunteer Citizen Scientists. These sites will be used to help educate the public about understanding and the benefits of our naturally occurring plants for our ecosystem (pollinators), soil health, and water quality.
This program still needs a name, and we are reaching out to you to come up with some ideas! Let us know!
Soil Health also holds trainings throughout the year to educate people about the importance of health soil in their own lives, and in their communities. If you want to know more about soil health, or sign up for a training, you can follow them on their Facebook.
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- This past May, and continuing into June, Oklahoma saw an enormous amount of flooding due to the heavy rain and storms that swept across the entire state. The following articles shed some light on what some people were going through: Read, Read, Read.
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Eager: The Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter by Ben Goldfarb is a book about using beavers for watershed restoration. And speaking of beavers, take a look at the Methow Beaver Project.
- As Blue Thumbers, we all understand the importance of macroinvertebrates and insects in an ecosystem. In Germany, a Citizen Scientist group put together an amazing study that discusses how insect biomass is decreasing precipitously, which can have huge impacts on life in Earth. You can read the published study, as well as further discussions about the results.
- The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio is acknowledging the 50th anniversary of when the river caught on fire back in 1969. This event, the 13th time this waterbody had been on fire, heightened environmental awareness and largely inspired the formation of the EPA and the Clean Water Act. You can read more about it here, here and here.
- The Izaak Walton League of America is working on a new Citizen Science project called "Stream Selfie", where they are compiling a list of streams on Earth using the #StreamSelfie. Whenever you are at a creek, go ahead and use the hashtag and tag both the Izaak Walton League and Blue Thumb to expand awareness of clean water.
- #trashtag is a new movement that sweeping social media across the globe. People of all ages are showing the difference they make when out in nature by taking a photo of an area before and after cleaning up trash. The clever movement is called "Hashtag Trashtag", or #trashtag. We encourage Blue Thumbers to do the same, and tag us when you do!
- Tick Season in Oklahoma is every season. We've all had them at some point in our lives. Now, though, when you find a tick on yourself, don't just pull it off... send it in for testing to see if it's carrying a disease! The Oklahoma State Medical Association Foundation has provided a grant that allows for free and unlimited tick testing for one year (July 1, 2019 - July 1, 2020). You can participate here!
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