Welcome

If you are viewing this blog then you are most likely a student newly enrolled in my class, Stream Habitat Management. This blog is a place for all students to come together and share their perspectives on stream habitat issues. Every day many news stories on the plight of our rivers and streams and the conflicts that arise as humans use the flowing water resources, often with little understanding of the complexity that surrounds these habitats.

Some days I may just post a photograph that is meaningful to the topics we are exploring. This photo depicts critical habitat for the federally endangered Roanoke Logperch Percina rex.

I will post questions and issues to you via the blog and expect that you will respond to these questions based on your reading the assignments and integrating this information in your existing frameworks for understanding the world. At other times I will point you to interesting stories about rivers and streams, such as this one on dam removal in Pennsylvania http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08230/904653-358.stm . We can learn from one another as we share our unique perspectives and entertain the notion that we just might be wrong once in a while.

On the blog you can Comment on any posting. Additionally you are each authors for the blog so you can also post your own topics. I believe that we learn best by way of telling stories and writing stories in a language that makes most sense to us. No one wants to learn by simply following a new recipe. Do you?

So the first step is to select a place to tell your story -- a stream or a river that is close enough to visit a few times this semester. What are you looking for? Not too big... not too small ...not too familiar... not too far away. This sketch was drawn in fall 1997 in preparation of some stream bank stabilization in the North Fork Roanoke River. My students did a habitat and biotic assessment in 1998 setting us up for the question of what are things like now??

If you are reading this blog then you must be interested in becoming a better steward of our lands and flowing waters, developing your expertise in some specialty of stream habitat management, and willing and able to work with other students to solve stream management problems collaboratively. It will help if we know each other better.

So take a few minute and comment in response to this blog posting. Tell us who you are and what you hope to learn in Stream Habitat Management.