Back to School
By Lori Luechtefeld

Pond tours and community events serve as popular and important events for bringing water gardening and koi-keeping to the attention of a wider — and often younger — audience. The quest to spread the joys of ponding to the next generation need not end there.

In 2007, North Texas Water Garden Society took its youth outreach efforts to a new level. The club provided funds, supervision and part of the labor to build ponds with streams at two elementary schools.

“The schools use these ponds as outdoor environmental learning laboratories,” said Joe Copeland, president of North Texas Water Garden Society. “These ponds are real-world examples of science, biology and environmental science. The students are so interested in activities around the pond that they forget they are learning.”

Diana Lynn Rehn, president of Inland Empire Water Garden and Koi Society in Spokane, Wash., said her club also conducts a significant amount of outreach at local schools. For example, club members regularly contact middle schools to schedule times to talk with the students about the joy of ponds. Two local high schools recently participated in a major pond cleanout event organized by Inland Empire Water Garden and Koi Society, and every year, the club invites high school students to participate in the club’s koi-health checks.

“During our koi shows, we also contact high schools to see if one of their clubs can help set up and tear down,” Rehn said. “We give a donation to the club for helping, but it also exposes even more young people to the hobby.”

Bill Thompson, vice chair of Associated Koi Clubs of America and president of Koi Club of San Diego, said he’d like to see these student-level outreach efforts go further in the future. For example, he said he’d like to see koi organizations begin to fund scholarships for young people interested in becoming fish veterinarians or aquatic biologists. “We need to encourage young people,” he said, “to experience and work in the natural world.” <HOME>