Tag Archives: Ingram Micro

Local Companies Support Reinstein Woods’ Programs!

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Friends of Reinstein would like to extend a special thank you to:

 

Student moving water on Enviroscape
Students use an Enviroscape to explore how water travels.

 

Ingram Micro (Williamsville Office) for donating funds to purchase a new Enviroscape, a table-top watershed model used to educate students about where our drinking water comes from and where our sewage goes. Classes that participate in the Day in the Life of the Buffalo River program will receive a free in-class presentation using the model.  The model can even demonstrate a combined sewer overflow(CSO), a water quality issue of great importance in Western New York.

 

 

native plants blooming inside fence
A fence protects native plants from predators

Bond, Schoeneck & King Buffalo employees for their “jeans day” donation. The funds will be used to purchase native plants and related supplies as part of the habitat improvement project that aims to remove invasive common reed plants and replace them with native species.

Curbell Plastics employees who helped remove  invasive species this summer in Reinstein Woods as part of the United Way Day of Caring. The group removed invasive common reed from two sites, as well as purple loosestrife from a wetland and ferns that were overtaking a deer exclosure.

Curbell volunteers group shot
Curbell volunteers

Students Experience “Day in the Life”

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By Jill Zerkowski, Naturalist Intern

On September 29, more than 300 students, teachers and volunteers arrived on the shores of the Buffalo River and its tributaries. Equipped with tools such as nets, tubes, clipboards and data sheets, students from six schools from across western New York were ready to explore the complex relationships that are found in the Buffalo River. The fourth annual Day in the Life of the Buffalo River found students ankle deep in water, giving them a unique hands-on experience.Students in river with net

In addition to the students, teachers and volunteers, several partner organizations were on-site to help with the event. Representatives from the Erie County Park Rangers, Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation’s Great Lakes Program, and US Fish & Wildlife Service’s Lower Great Lakes Fish & Wildlife Conservation Office worked with students at ten different sites to collect data about water quality, biodiversity, create maps, as well as to share the history of the Buffalo River.

All of the data collected by the students will be posted on the web and shared between the participating classes.

Reinstein Woods gave students and educators a day they most likely won’t forget. Students doing turbidity test in Buffalo RiverLearning to do real science, like measuring turbidity (the cloudiness in the water), is one benefit of the program.  “The turbidity tube was awesome! We poured the water in (the tube), and the secchi disk actually disappeared! It was so cool when we let the water out and could see the disk again,” said one student.

Brittany Rowan, Friends of Reinstein Woods environmental educator, said, “This event is a great opportunity for students to investigate this local water resource and take real-world data. It’s exciting for them to become scientists for a day.”

Special thanks to the local offices of Ingram Micro and Northrop Grumman for providing students holding up chemical testfunding to support this STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) program. The Julia B. Reinstein Trust also provides financial support that makes this program possible.