With Chattanooga recently recognized as a National Park City, our local Volkswagen plant hosted its very own biodiversity day to highlight the city’s incredible natural features. As you walk into the conference center on Volkswagen’s campus, you are greeted by goats from Audubon Acres! Not only were they available for kids to pet, but their owner (affectionately known as the horse lady) informed that they could come to your property as a sustainable method for cutting back grass. Not a bad start to the day! Stepping into the brightly lit space, you could see partner tables with a variety of displays: Beehives, taxidermied wildlife, park maps, photography, and the like. The Volkswagen hosts offered passports to families, allowing them to collect adorable stamps to mark their visits to each station. At the WaterWays table, kids could experiment with a model biotic index, a simulation of a real test we do at our local creeks and streams. Kids collect fake bugs from a tub of water and match them to an identification key to see if the species is sensitive to pollution. After sorting their bug collection and determining whether or not they are present in clean or dirty water, the aspiring scientists will uncover whether the tub of water is polluted. Our visitors found the tub was pretty clean, given the presence of frogs, crawfish, and salamanders (their favorite). We’re grateful to have partners like Volkswagen who encourage stewardship of our waterways!
