A 'first' for students as they spend Sunday in the creek

McCloud's Run along the Cedar River Trail is in the heart of civilization, hemmed in between Interstate 380 and Center Point Road. The hum of traffic is constant even as about 30 students searched the creek for bugs and water samples throughout Sunday afternoon.

Middle and high school students spent hours teaching younger students about some of the habitat in the water and why they were out searching for spineless bugs.

“We are looking for fish without spines because the ones with spines can go up and down the stream,” explained Andrew Laing, 15, a freshman at Cedar Rapids Kennedy. Laing said the spineless bugs also demonstrate the level of water quality in the creek because they remain in the area throughout their lives.

Both the older students and the newer ones wore tan T-shirts that announced they were “Creek Freaks” as people walked by along the trail.

“This is actually a pretty healthy stream,” said Bailey Zaputil, 14, an eighth-grader at Franklin Middle School in Cedar Rapids. “We are trying to test the living quality of the stream.” Zaputil said she had spent each day since Thursday in a crash course to learn as much about the water at McCloud's run as possible.

Zaputil spent the first hour teaching her own newly-developed knowledge about the bugs to Peyton McGuire, a fifth grader student at Viola Gibson Elementary in Cedar Rapids.

“I'm hoping to learn that there are a lot of healthy things in this river so it is not polluted and some life forms can survive,” said McGuire, 11. McGuire and his group of a dozen students moved to the session's other stations, including the testing of water samples and conducting physical experiments involving the creek.

“The idea is to create a sustainable education program where these older kids can teach it to the younger kids as well,” said David Blankenship, director of the Izaak Walton League chapter in Cedar Rapids.

Laing said he had been one of those younger kids who became captivated by the outdoors and now enjoyed sharing that with others.

“In seventh grade, we went over to Wickiup Hill and did the same thing,” Laing said. “I just have to be in the water.”

Why was Cedar Rapids chosen for this program? Blankenship said the chapter was able to supply the students as well as the environment, especially for the initial training late last week.

-Chris Earl, KCRG-TV9 News