The Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences Academy is a state sponsored 4-H program that is a 3 year commitment for participants.  The program focuses on water, forestry and wildlife. Individual participants are required to plan an educational program on what they have learned and share it with others or develop a community service project.  Two Henry County youth that are part of the academy decided to develop a day camp on the importance of water quality. Fifteen youth participated in the water quality camp.

The day began with activities and games led by the NRESA members in which participants learned that communities must cooperate for the same sources of water. Guest speakers from the Salt River Watershed Watch shared how to determine if a stream is healthy through an assessment based on visual assessment, ph. level, temperature, soil erosion, plant material, and species of micro invertebrates living in the stream.

The afternoon was spent assessing two streams in the county.  Volunteers from the Salt River Watershed Watch led the groups of youth participants through the different aspects of stream assessment to determine their health.   All of the youth involved agreed that they gained a better understanding of stream health and felt that they could more confidently determine through a visual assessment if the stream was in good health or could offer suggestions to improve its quality.  One volunteer stated that the youth in this program were learning information that they did not receive until their sophomore year of college and was very complimentary of how quickly they were to put into practice what they had learned.