Approximately 1,000 sixth-grade students gathered together at Emerson Park on Owasco Lake for Cayuga County Conservation Field Days.

This year, the event took place June 3 and 4.

During this event, students from all over the county were exposed to a number of environmental topics, taught by conservation professionals that volunteered their time.

Students participated in hands-on activities and learned how they impact local natural resources and the environment.

Some of the Conservation Field Days lessons included: water quality, bats, birds, fish and much more.

To encourage learning beyond field days, the students participated in an essay contest.

The essays were to be written about “The Most Important Thing I learned at Conservation Field Days” and were judged according to grammar, content and persuasiveness. Seven essays won the essay contest this year.

I will feature two of the top essays - one this week and one next week.

“Rivers of Ice”

Written by Amanda Dean, a student at Cayuga Middle School

The most important thing I learned at Conservation Field Days was the Rivers of Ice station.

The presenter's name was Brian, and he talked about glaciers and what happened to them, and how they disappeared except in some areas.

Some facts are that the glaciers retreated because the temperatures, and are still retreating, glaciers came from Canada, you can't see a glacier move because it is so large and moves very slowly.

I also learned that as glaciers moved the temperature got warmer and they stopped around the area of Ithaca.

As the glaciers grow wide and tall the weight of the thick ice makes the glaciers move.

Also, as the glaciers moved they left gouges in the Earth's surface, leaving large bodies of water and later forming lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams. Even the Finger Lakes were formed by the glaciers and the gouges.

When I was at this station the presenter also talked about soil, air, and organic matter.

Soil is made of mineral fractions. Air and water are parts of soil and water takes the place of the air, worms need air to survive.

Organic matter is anything that used to be alive which I also learned.

I learned a lot from this station and it really made me think about how the temperatures changed when glaciers were here, and how we are now in the middle of Global Warming.

Learning about the soil, air, water and organic matter made me think of how we need to take care of our surroundings and that if we do, it could help us out in the long run.

Renee Jensen is a community educator of environmental issues at Cornell

Cooperative Extension of Cayuga County.