|
Notes on Mini-Academies
Many thanks to Blue Thumb Volunteers Jackie Brewer and Cindy Lance at the Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences for hosting Blue Thumb's first education mini-academy of the year on January 22. There are more opportunities coming up to attend an education mini-academy. It is our goal to make it easy for our volunteers to participate by holding these events across the state. You can attend a scheduled event, or contact me about offering an event in your neck of the woods.
Keep in mind that the education mini-academies (previously referred to as workshops) are optional events set up to encourage small group sharing and provide the chance to learn a little more about some of Blue Thumb's educational tools.
Be sure to watch our Facebook page for more information. Let's take better care of the earth, starting in our own front yard!
Cheryl Cheadle Volunteer Coordinator
 Grant money available for Volunteers!
Do you have a good idea for an education project? Are you a teacher monitoring with students and you need some field supplies? Do you want to set up an exhibit at the local library? Friends of Blue Thumb is offering grants from $100-$300 to help you do good work for Oklahoma's streams and rivers. Download the grant form provided here and follow instructions to write your proposal and create a budget estimate. After completing, please email the saved document and direct any questions to Friends of Blue Thumb board member Kurtis Koll by February 28, 2020.
Watch the Friends of Blue Thumb Facebook page for more information.
|
A Message from the Director!
The Blue Thumb program just finished up the reporting cycle for 2019. Volunteer hours are one of the many outputs we track and report. Our program (and several others within the Oklahoma Conservation Commission) is funded by federal Clean Water Act §319 money. The CWA §319 program requires that grant recipients provide a certain percentage of matching dollars to cover a portion of the program budget. Part of the way we meet the match requirement is by tracking volunteer hours. Each hour that you spend sampling, analyzing samples, preparing data interpretations, and helping at education events helps us fulfill the match requirement. Did you know an hour of your time is worth $25.43? We are able to leverage $63.58 in federal funds for every documented hour of volunteer effort (the "documented" part is very important!). The $25.43 value comes from an organization called the Independent Sector. Check out their website if you would like a 10,000-foot view of volunteer effort in the United States.
2019 was a stellar year for volunteer hours. There are likely two reasons for this:
- You simply did MORE. You put in more hours, you said "yes" to extra activities, you invested in your own watersheds.
- You kept accurate records of your effort, and submitted documentation to Blue Thumb. Over 8,000 volunteer hours were recorded in 2019. This is more than an 1,000-hour increase relative to 2018.
Your effort matters. Thank you for contributing your valuable time to support Blue Thumb and healthy Oklahoma waterways!
Rebecca Bond Blue Thumb Director
|
|
To our Monthly Monitors:
Howdy Howdy from your QA Officer,
Happy New Year 2020, to everyone! Are you seeing better? I'm certain you have all already heard that a lot. So far, January seems to be starting out as springtime. But since it's technically winter and the start of a new year, it is time for you to decide if you would like to participate in bacteria screening for your monitoring site. Just to make this clear, bacteria screening is OPTIONAL. Some of you are new and don't know this process:
May through September are the bacteria screening months (prime months for people getting into creeks). When running bacteria screenings, you will run 3 tests each month. We will give you 15 small bottles of growth media that you will need to keep frozen, 15 petri dishes, 5 disposable pipettes, color-coded ID cards to show you what color E. coli is and what color total coliform is. You will need to supply your own incubator. If you do not have access to an incubator, a Styrofoam ice chest and an incandescent (NOT LED) night light work fine.
For more information and detailed instructions on how to perform the bacteria screening, you can read the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) here.
This is an OPTIONAL activity that you can do with your monthly monitoring. If you decide you want to do this, please let Becky know, or let your Blue Thumb staff person know at your upcoming QA session before March 15, 2020, so that we know how much equipment to order. This is a screening process and nothing official like a lab can produce, but it will give you an indication if there is a little or a lot of E. coli bacteria in your creek water. If there is a lot of E. coli, that doesn't mean the water is deadly, but just an indicator that the water has a higher tendency to be harmful if ingested.
 In the above photos, most, if not all, of the dark dots are E. coli colonies. The pink dots are total coliform colonies.
It has also been brought to our attention that there is another issue with some PhosVer3 reagents. Please check your PhosVer3 reagents for Lot #: A7094 that expires May 2022. If you have these reagents, please let us know ASAP so that we can get you a new batch.
If you have any questions about this, please feel free to contact me, or any Blue Thumb staff member.
Kim Shaw Blue Thumb QA Officer
|
|
 Blue Thumb Volunteer Trainings
Duncan: Fairgrounds March 28 and 29
Yukon: Mabel C Fry Library May 2 and 3
You can sign up on our website!
 Hey, Volunteers!
For those of you who live in South Central Oklahoma, or those who are ready for a road trip, take a look at all of the events taking place at the Ada Public Library! The library is now host to the Smithsonian Water/Ways Exhibit and Blue Thumb volunteers are encouraged to take part.
|
 Education Mini-Academies:
Muscogee (Creek) Nation Housing Division, 2nd Floor Conference Room 2915 N. Wood Dr., Okmulgee March 2, 2020 at 2:00 pm and 5:00 pm
Northwestern OSU Science Building, Room 208 709 Oklahoma Blvd, Alva March 9, 2020 at 6:00 pm*
Oklahoma Co. Conservation District 4850 N. Lincoln Blvd, Suite #200 Oklahoma City March 24, 2020 at 6:00 pm*
*Quality Assurance Presentation from the 12/07/2019 Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon will be offered
 Mini-Workshop at the Glenpool Public Library:
Soil, Water, and Ways... to Make a Difference! Saturday, March 7, 2020 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Contact Cheryl Cheadle to attend and for more information.
|
|
 Water Infiltration (Adding Soil to the Water Cycle)
Soil is nature's carbon filter for clean water. The water cycle includes evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and collection. Our soil should be the number one collection site before it runs into streams and water reservoirs. Most of the time, we think of water going directly to the big water sources and bypassing our soil. However, it should be a slow process and runoff should be the last resort. To encourage your water to become clean, follow at least 4 of the 5 soil health principles to encourage larger pore space, faster infiltration, and increase its time to go through nature's carbon filter: SOIL!
You can find out more information on our Facebook page!
Amy Seiger State Soil Health Coordinator
|
|
 
-
Citizen Science: Innovation in Open Science, Society, and Policy. Hecker et al., 2018. A virtual tome of citizen science research.
-
Ten Principles of Citizen Science. European Citizen Science Association.
-
Citizen Science: Theory and Practice. The open-acess journal of the Citizen Science Association.
- The world's largest platform for volunteer-powered research, Zooniverse is an amazing and unique experience to help authenticate images, historical records, and videos of the galaxy, animals, plants, and so much more. Get involved today!
- Don't forget about the "Stream Selfie" project from the Izaak Walton League, the #trashtag movement, and tick testing!
|
|
|
|
|