"Take a Hike!" & the Milwaukee River Quest

In the summer of 2008 and 2009 RRF joined with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett’s Earn and Learn Program.The result was the opportunity for city youth to be employed 20 hours a week, for seven weeks over the last two summers.The program, run by Milwaukee Area Work Force Investment Board, strives to teach the basics of having a job as well as providing work experience, an opportunity not had by many youth.

Working in conjunction with job skills training, RRF’s goal is to expose workers to the natural world. The goal is to teach workers about native and non-native plant species so that they can assist RRF in natural landscape restoration as well as transfer conservation knowledge and skills to a new generation.

Throughout the seven weeks, the workers learn to identify plants, remove non-natives and plant native species. To complement their restoration work in the valley, the workers are challenged to create and lead their own trail hikes to demonstrate what they have learned not only about the natural species of the valley but the history of human interaction and use of the land in the past. Photography, drawing, map creation and graphic layout are also tasks associated with their summer work.

This connection of the natural environment with learning the history of the valley is vital for our summer workers. It encourages the workers to develop not only a sense of place in our public lands, but encourages stewardship in their futures. This outcome and this publication (the cover featured above) is the direct result of their efforts.

Take a Hike Publication
The "Take a Hike!" publication is an eight-page tabloid sized document that will be distributed in the area surrounding the Milwaukee River in Spring of 2010. Within the newspaper style document are the trail guides, stories and hand-drawn plant species guides, trail maps, and diagrams of RRF's summer Earn & Learn Crew.

Milwaukee River Quest
The Milwaukee River Quest is outdoor hike based on the trail guides written by our summer work crews. Written in to the trail guides are is information regarding the placement of 12 informational signs within the Milwaukee River corridor from Locust Street to North Avenue on both banks of the river. The quest is designed for all who enjoy hiking, learning something new about the river, its adjacent lands and their history. It is recommended for grade school aged children in groups of 4-6 with the assistance of an adult to help interpret directions.

As you follow the trail guide it leads you on a quest to find the 12 signs as well as the plant species and "quest clues" that are written on them. (see example sign) Collect the "quest clues" and write them in the spaces provided in the publication. Once the quest is completed, the hiker may visit the River Quest section of our website to discover more information about the clues they collected. After verification of the the correct quest clues via an online quiz, the hiker will have the opportunity to submit their quest results for a free pass to a local museum or an embroidered patch.