Would you like your students to learn more? Listed below are a selection of videos and an exotic species travelling trunk that can be borrowed. e-mail to make arrangements. Loan period is for two weeks. Riverway ships to school, schools pays return shipping costs.

VIDEOS
St. Croix Reflections: follows a family's fall canoe trip. The trip is interspersed with recreations of historic scenes of voyageurs and lumbermen. National Park Service -12 minutes

Cold Wet & Alive: A canoe trip with friends and some simple inconsequential mistakes lead to hypothermia and near tragedy. American Canoe Association - 22 minutes

Last Log Drive: The last log drive in Minnesota on the Little Fork River near International Falls. Similar to what occurred on the St. Croix. Minnesota Historical Society - 10 minutes

Last of the Jacks: The jacks were the workers who got the logs out of the woods and to the sawmills. They had their own vocabulary and style. Minnesota Historical Society - 15 minutes

Lyme Disease: Hitchhikers in the Woods: Learn about deer ticks and the Lyme disease some of them carry. Deer ticks are found in the Riverway. Gundersen Medical Foundation - 13 minutes

Mussel Menace: Zebra Mussels and You: Learn about this exotic species that threatens St. Croix River wildlife. Sea Grant - 15 minutes

National Park Service: An American Legacy: A 1991 video history of the National Park Service created for the 75th anniversary of its founding. National Park Service- 28 minutes

Rise and Fall of the Great Lakes: A creative geography lesson where a canoe tours the Great Lakes while traveling through time. Canada Film Board - 16 minutes

The Wolf: A Howling in America's National Parks: The wolf, its history, and the role it plays in America's National Parks. National Park Service - 30 minutes

Traveling Trunk: "Exotic Aquatics"
Exotic species are a real environmental threat. Without natural predators, they often displace native species and impact recreation, water quality, pollutant cycling, and habitat. This trunk allows students to get up close and personal with exotic aquatic animals and plants! Students, ages nine to adult, can have fun seeing and touching zebra mussels, Eurasian watermilfoil, sea lamprey, and Eurasian ruffe -- all exotic aquatics that are in the news and may be in a lake or wetland near you.

The National Park Service at St. Croix National Scenic Riverway currently monitors and sometimes eradicates exotic species including zebra mussels, rusty crayfish, and purple loosestrife in certain segments of the Riverway. Education is the key to preventing the spread of exotic species. This teaching tool empowers students to explore exotic species and their impacts on native communities.

WHAT'S IN THE TRUNK?
Each trunk includes museum-quality preserved specimens of zebra mussels, Eurasian ruffe, purple loosestrife, Eurasian watermilfoil, and spiny waterfleas. There's also a realistic rubber sea lamprey, models of native clams, books, maps, posters, magnifying glasses, a companion VHS video, and a complete curriculum with nine lessons developed in cooperation with University of Minnesota researchers and state environmental agencies.

HOW DO I ORDER THE TRUNK?
The St. Croix National Scenic Riverway is one of the distribution points for the Exotic Aquatics Traveling Trunk program. These trunks were developed by Minnesota Sea Grant in partnership with the National Park Service, University of Minnesota Bell Museum of Natural History, US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Foundation and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Email SACN_Interpretation@nps.gov to use the trunk.

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
To use the Aquatic Exotic trunk, the requester pays shipping costs via FedEx or UPS or picks it up and returns it from one of the three visitor centers.

QUESTIONS?
E-mail us with your questions.