Sturgeon City Institutes 2004
Coverage by the Media Institute.

Young Leaders Institute
Butterflies and clean water

Helping plant in the butterfly garden.

The Butterfly Garden
By: Josh Sutton
What is a butterfly garden?
The name explains it all: It is a garden for butterflies.
The Student Leader Development Institute visited one of those today at a future location in Sturgeon City.
The garden is still under construction. Larry Hobbs, an environmental consultant who is supervising the development, said that the set up, as well as the flowers planted, should be done today.
That completion date is thanks to the help of some of the kids that visited them today.
In the heat of the day, the rising sophomores were getting their hands dirty and breaking a sweat pulling up weeds, raking the dirt, and then laying down the seeds. Sounds easy, but these kids were doing this in extremely hot conditions.

How Clean is Your Water?
By: Josh Sutton
Today the Student Leader Development Institute visited the Wilson Bay Park to take samples from the bay and examine it for life and water quality. Diana Rashash taught them how to use chemistry and natural processes to clean water.
She took a sample of cloudy, dirty water and added talc lime. Because clay, which makes the water dirty, has a negative charge and talc lime has a positive charge, they are attracted to each other.

Getting a perspective on the water.

Together they clump up and sink to the bottom of the bottle, leaving the top of the bottle clear.
Then, taking a filter that she made using a bottle and earth material like gravel and sand, she poured the water at the top of the bottle through the earth material to remove the clay and talc.

The water looks clean, but was it? she asked the students. They answered “no.” “Boil it,” they chorused.

Checking the water.