Hey, DigiLearners! Help us BRAINSTORM!

After spending time at the North Bingham County Park, just west of Shelley, I think some of the items they had there would work at Portneuf Centennial Park.  Use the concrete areas to put impressions of wild life paw prints.  Plant trees and other plants and have labels next to them.  Develop a scavenger hunt for the area with a downloadable link so that patrons can discover parts of the park.  Benches that have information about the area engraved on them or information attached with some other format.  I think what I am getting at is to make this a field trip destination for schools.  

I understand the desire to make the Centennial Park area into a gathering place via the river; however, I would rather see the concrete channel area at Raymond Park be redesigned. Let's face it, the levies are not very attractive, but the concrete channel is the worst as far as river-friendliness.

This is a great exercise to get people involved and connected with their community. It emphasizes the concepts of ecosystem and Ecosystem Services without getting too technical. Having the opportunity to think about and to plan potentially new park amenities connected me to my ecosystem and which ecosystem services I thought were important.

I like a lot of the ideas that have been proposed.  I'd love to add that there has been great success at zoos and museums creating apps for their facility/park.  They are intereactive and allows lots of extensions of the materials or attractions present at the facility.  It allows incorporation of all the things we have been talking about so far!  Things like history, the inverted topography mentioned, conservation efforts, etc.

Additionally, this can be linked to online learning opportunities and/or lesson plans that are provided to teachers, church group leaders, etc.  This can also be related to the citizen scientists project about which we viewed the video over the weekend.

Some great ideas have been posted so far!  I love the interactive activities that make the area more than just an enjoyable place to be, but also a place of learning.  I also like the idea of restoration and trying to restore the river and area to its own natural state.  Not only trying to create a place for human activity, but also restoring habitat for the animals, and for us to observe their natural state as well. 

While I am totally unfamiliar with the Portneuf River, I am familiar with both theGreen Belt in Idaho Falls and the park in Shelley.  The idea of holding scavenger hunts is cool and i would think many elementary age kids would appreciate it but what about older teens and even adults? I believe that many adults would enjoy learning about the areas biodiversity byhaving plants/trees labeled withtheir common names as well as the genus ans species.  Informative placards illustrating the birds that may be seen or the fish that may be caught could be a scavenger hunt for older people.