Bankhead National Forest Training Recap

Its always a treat to be at the Wonderful, Wonderful Camp McDowell! 

Sergio, Carolina, and Sydney headed back up to the beautiful Camp McDowell for a monitoring training part of the US Forest Service and Wild Alabama sponsored project to support monitoring on the National Forests of Alabama (NFALs).  

The group after wrapping up water chemistry practices. Photo credit: Sydney Zinner

Special thanks to Andrew Shea with Camp McDowell Staff for coordinating our workshop location, and for making coffee! 

We kicked off our bacteriological and water chemistry monitoring trainings with introductions from our project sponsors with Wild Alabama, and the National Forests in Alabama. Wild Alabama Executive Director, Maggie Johnston, was so kind to make fresh, homemade sourdough bread and butter for the new volunteers to enjoy during the training! 

Jody Tetlow, the Bankhead Recreation Program Manager, stopped by to tell us more about visiting the Bankhead and enjoying all the beauty the forest has to offer.

Jody Tetlow introduces volunteers to the Bankhead National Forest. Photo credit: Sydney Zinner

Workshop participants learned about bacteriological monitoring in the morning, then we headed out to Clear Creek on Camp McDowell’s property for water chemistry monitoring after lunch.

Workshop folders set out and ready to go for bacteria monitoring. Photo credit: Sydney Zinner
We sampled earlier in the week to have cards ready to practice counting. Photo credit: Sydney Zinner
Clear Creek at Camp McDowell. Photo credit: Sydney Zinner

AWW Staff were joined by our newest Volunteer Trainer, Jonathan Kelly with Wild Alabama, and he did an excellent job!

Jonathan leads water chemistry testing practices. Photo credit: Sydney Zinner

Carolina also led for first time and did a great job teaching the practices of the pH test!

Carolina has a captive audience as she teaches pH. Photo credit: Sydney Zinner

We are excited to welcome this new group of volunteers to the AWW Team, and we look forward to many more trainings at Camp McDowell and on the Bankhead National Forest!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *