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PEEKSKILL, N.Y. -- Ruben Rosado and Alexa Bonnes, students at Walter Panas High School, waded out into the water at Peekskills waterfront Tuesday morning -- waters they had experienced before but were still experiencing for the first time.
The two were part of an 11-student class participating in New York States A Day In the Life of the Hudson Tuesday. The program, organized by the Hudson River Estuary Program, gave students the opportunity to collect data on the river, and contribute their findings to a bigger database of information collected with other schools throughout the day.
I think its important for the people who live in the community here to really connect to the river and appreciate what it does for our whole valley, said Laura Heady, the biodiversity outreach coordinator for the Hudson River Estuary, who assisted the students on site Tuesday. For communities to realize that they connect to this river that runs through the whole valley is really important.
Walter Panas teacher Michael Billy, who teaches the class, said it gave the students a unique opportunity to do hands-on research on a body of water that sits right in their backyard.
Hands-on is always better than sitting in the classroom, he said. If I could do this every day I wouldhonestly, and they would just absolutely love it too. I think part of it is that we have a resource here thats unique, that very, very few places in the world have, and its only a few minutes away for us, so were very fortunate in that regard.
Bonnes and Rosado said they were each familiar with the river in a recreational sense, but the trips experience gave the waters more depth.
Weve been out here before on our free time, at the riverfront for fireworks or something like that just hanging out, Rosado said. But this is actually the first time Im looking into the actual Hudson River and the estuary. You get a totally different perspective, and going out there, it just feels so much different. Now Ill always look at it differently.
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