Altina Kukaj Attends Creek Camp at Allegheny College

MEADVILLE, PA (08/04/2011)(readMedia)-- Altina Kukaj, daughter of Malje and Drita Kukaj of Chestnut Ridge, N.Y., attended Creek Camp at Allegheny College in July.

Founded in 2006, the residential camp for 10th and 11th graders gives students hands-on experience studying biology and freshwater ecology in northwestern Pennsylvania's waterways. During the weeklong camp, students explored French Creek, the most biodiverse stream in Pennsylvania, as well as other streams in the watershed.

Campers performed water chemistry tests, collected aquatic macroinvertebrates, canoed French Creek, snorkeled for freshwater mussels and searched for reptiles and amphibians in and around the water.

The camp is part of Creek Connections, a program through which Allegheny College students and faculty collaborate with regional schools in western Pennsylvania and New York, using the French Creek and Ohio River watersheds as outdoor laboratories for ongoing water quality investigations done by school children.

About Creek Connections

A watershed education outreach program of Allegheny College, Creek Connections works with K-12 students throughout the school year to help them understand the importance of healthy waterways in their community-local, nationwide and global. Their community's "backyard" waterways are the laboratories where the students perform chemical tests of the creek, search for aquatic macroinvertebrates and understand the many connections between their actions and the waterway's health, between their waterway and the many rivers and lakes in the area, and between the health of the waterway and their own health. Creek Camp started as a natural extension of Creek Connections' school year program. It is an in-depth, up-close, hands-on experience for high school students to study an exceptional waterway. In the process, they also get to know Allegheny College and meet representatives of a variety of environmental-related career fields. For more information, visit http://creekconnections.allegheny.edu/.