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Sound Rivers Environmental Projects Coordinator Clay Barber and Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper Jill Howell took middle-school children on an environmental journey this week at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences at Greenville/Contentnea.

They started their presentation with their own Tour de Tar journey — a 10-day kayaking adventure down the Tar River in October 2020.

“We explained what that trip was, why we did it and what we saw along the way, then used that to transition to water quality,” Barber said. “We wanted the kids to know that science can be done outdoors and not just in a lab, and there’s lots of threats to our waterways, to the water we use every day and to the environment that relies on the same water we do.”

Barber and Howell walked their audience through the process of water-sampling and got their assistance in calculating how much of the E. coli bacteria was in the samples, showing its prevalence under a blacklight.

“The kids seemed to enjoy that,” Barber laughed.

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences: A Time for Science plans to reopen its Greenville exhibits by the end of summer, when renovation of the space is complete. Emily Jarvis, the museum’s director, was recently awarded the Pitt County Tourism Partner award by Visit Greenville, for the work done to promote science and area tourism.

For more information, visit the museum’s website.