On April 10th, 2022 EMRCD's Jean Okuye helped steer an educational event at the Merced River Restoration Site on the Bettencourt property.
The students and leaders held conversations about poisonous hemlock and local plants, then they broke up into pairs and did scavenger hunts and shared their findings. Reusability of materials was a theme; Jean used recycled bags with the list of things to hunt stapled on the outside. Scott Ross and some biologists from Teichert also attended and talked about restoration work. According to them, "The reason to plant trees in rows is to allow water to flow through them when the area floods."
The Sycamore trees on the restoration site are seen below towering the students standing in the front. Jean led a game with two teams that moved students from tree to tree when a question was answered correctly; the first team to get to the last tree and answer the 8 questions won seed packets as prizes.
