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Dear Students,
This page contains materials and links for you to learn about streams in the Catskills. This page is also meant to provide a central location for local students to display their water-related artwork (drawings, murals, poems, pictures, etc.). Please feel free to submit requests for posting of your stream or water resource materials to info@catskillstreams.org.
Have fun!!
Catskillstreams Outreach Group
Have a Question about Catskill Streams or Water Resources?
Click on the logo above for NYCDEP's Water Watcher's Activity Booklet
Why Should I Care aout Water Quality?
Wherever you live in the Catskills, what you do at your home and its surroundings can have a direct impact on your neighbors and friends water resources. As watershed land uses (houses, roads, parking lots, farms, etc) evolved over the last 200+ years, the natural water balance was altered. In the flatter valley bottoms, natural forest cover and wetlands were replaced initially with farms, and more recently with roads, culverts, driveways, parking lots and buildings. These hard surfaces, or impervious surfaces, increase the amount of rainfall that flows over land and reduce the amount of rainfall that percolates into the soil or is consumed by plants and trees. Increasing the amount of rainfall that runs off the land can lead to increased flooding, and as water flows over these paved surfaces, it collects soil, animal wastes, salt, fertilizers, oils, and other pollutants. Planting a tree is a simple way you can help decrease the amount of run off. You also use local streams and ponds for
fishing, boating, swimming, and drinking.
What is a Watershed?
A watershed can be defined as the land area that water flows across (surface water), and under (groundwater), on its way to a stream, river, or lake. Watersheds vary in size, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the Hudson River, to the Schoharie Creek, down to small tributaries that drain into the Schoharie Creek. Basically, a watershed is an area of land that drains to a single outlet. Everyone lives in a watershed. In some ways the watershed is like a bath tub - all the water that lands on the sides of the tub runs down and eventually into the drain.
Catskill Kids Corner
The artwork published below was created by students in the Catskills
Youth Watershed Mural Project
Michelle Spark and Christie Scheele, two local artists living in the Town of Shandaken led a Youth Watershed Mural Project sponsored by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County. The murals are a series of paintings on stream shaped panels installed throughout the town of Phoenicia. They depict the unique beauty of life in the Esopus Creek Watershed and provide a public arts component of the Education and Outreach Program of the Upper Esopus Creek Management Plan. For more information visit: www.esopuscreek.org/stream/index.html
 
 
Links and Resources for Kids and Teachers
Click on the links below for more information:
Kids Links
Teacher Links
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