Hi everyone!

Our web provider chose this holiday weekend to do some major work on their server room and moved our site onto one of their new servers.  Unfortunately, they ran into some pretty big problems.  I have been working on getting around the problems caused by the move.  We’ve gotten through most of them, but there are still some major issues that I have to find and deal with. The secure part of our web site isn’t working so registration is unavailable for right now.  I hope to get everything completely fixed very quickly.

Thanks.. davey

Our maintenance crew is hard at work on the new Oregon Pavilion. The pavilion is not like a typical pole barn, it is a large timber building and will fit nicely in the pioneer settlement.  Eventually there will be three-foot high stone pillars that will surround the base of the posts. The stonework will match the stone around the fireplace.  The new Oregon cabins will have the same stone pillars in the front side of the porch.

The pavilion should be able to fit approximately 200 people under the roof.  The primary use of the pavilion will be for our Summer Day Camp Program.  Day camp will use this pavilion as one of their main meeting areas. It will also be a great place to stay out of the rain!

Outdoor Education and Weekend Retreats will use this facility for a variety of things throughout the year.   This pavilion will serve as another option for groups to meet, participate in activities or just hang out.  Groups will gather for campfire programs and picnics inside.

The project should be finished by March and ready for Summer Camp 2010!

Camp Tecumseh recently signed on to be a volunteer organization for Hoosier Riverwatch, which is a state-sponsored water quality monitoring initiative.  The Outdoor Education staff is heading up the efforts of recording data taken from our very own Ghost Creek that a lot of guests hike to during their stay.

To determine the quality of the water there are three main areas that we have to test:
1) Habitat – flow, depth, land use, shape, erosion, substrate
2) Chemical – temperature, pH, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, nitrate, phosphate.
3) Biological – Benthic Macroinvertebrates (animals you can see that don’t have a back bone and live on the bottom).

Our results are then posted on a web database that can be viewed by anyone and provide information for governmental agencies that are working to protect Indiana’s rivers and streams.

The overall rating for Ghost Creek (which is in the Tippecanoe watershed) was very good, which was encouraging to see as camp has invested some money and effort into improving the water quality in the lake and consequently Ghost Creek.

Probably the most fun part for the students…and us, is when we look for as many macroinvertebrates as we can.  Finding these little critters is in itself a good indicator of water quality as many show little tolerance for pollution and findings also reflect the stability and diversity of the larger aquatic food web.  Students from Crawfordsville’s Hoover Elementary helped us with this portion and we were able to tie it in with their Earthship Journey program.