The fourth annual Watershed Festival truly was unlike any other festival because the only agenda for its 30 vendors was education.
Everyone from toddlers to seniors who attended Saturday’s festival, sponsored by the Clear Creek Watershed Foundation, at Courtney-Ryley-Cooper Park in Idaho Springs could learn something about the environment, water, mining and recycling. Some booths had participants play games, while others asked questions and provided displays.
At the Mountain Area Land Trust booth, for example, participants frosted sugar cookies in the shape of pine trees before eating them.
This was a hands-on, interactive, fun learning event.
At stake were the coveted stamps for the festival “passport,” which when filled entitled the bearer to a free barbecue lunch courtesy of Hilldaddy’s Wildfire Restaurant and Smokin Yard’s BBQ. Stopping at every station easily took two hours or more.
In the background, a band played music with an environmental theme: “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” “I Can See Clearly Now,” “This Land Is Your Land,” and even a song about Roy G Biv. For those who haven’t been in a science class lately, “Roy G Biv” is an acronym for the colors in the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
Several Clear Creek High School cheerleaders attended the festival on their way to cheer at a game, but they stopped in because a complete passport meant extra credit in a science class. Some Evergreen High School students had the same offer from their science teachers.
Timberline Disposal chief operating officer Larry Romine sat at his booth, explaining how much of a typical home’s trash can be recycled. He estimated that more than 95 percent of all trash could be recycled in some way.
The Clear Creek Metropolitan Recreation District promoted the need to teach young children to swim and to teach adults CPR.
Joann Powell at the CSU Extension booth had people guess how many drops of water could be put on a penny. Then they had to see how many drops actually could be placed there. So far, one person had managed to keep 36 drops on a penny, while other totals were in the teens.
Clear Creek Open Space taught the youngest attendees about streams and fish. It had a kiddie pool with plastic fish and fishing rods. When the toddlers caught a fish, they tossed it back into the pool to save endangered species.
Merlin Barnes from Friends of Dinosaur Ridge regaled festival-goers with stories about the dinosaurs, using lots of props. He made sure everyone knew the state fossil is a stegosaurus.
Clear Creek Stewardship had participants make bead necklaces based on the water cycle to show that the cycle is not a simple circle. If it were, every necklace would have one bead from each of the six stations. But the way the game was played, someone could stay at one station for several throws of the dice, collecting more of one color bead than another. It was a simple but effective way to show the true nature of the water cycle.
At the Environmental Protection Agency booth, Kool-Aid drink mix was a useful prop to show how using excessive fertilizer on lawns can eventually kill fish. Many people over-fertilize their lawns, and when it rains, the excess fertilizer eventually washes into streams and kills insects. Fish lose a food source, and they die, too.
Kool-Aid crystals were used on a plastic model of a town to symbolize the fertilizer, and a squirt bottle symbolized the rain. A few squirts, and the red Kool-Aid fertilizer made its way to the stream.
From the looks of it, the presenters were having just as much fun teaching their lessons as the participants were learning them.
“This is such a great event,” said Betsy Hays, development director with the Mountain Area Land Trust.
“People from all over come here: Clear Creek County, Evergreen, even soccer teams. Because of where we live, people living in this community need to learn about the environment.”
Contact Deb Hurley Brobst at deb@evergreenco.com or 303-350-1041. Check www.ClearCreek
Courant.com for updates.