MARTINSBURG — Around 100 fourth-graders from Orchard View Intermediate spent their Wednesday morning at Poor House Farm Park learning more about the Tuscarora Creek and its surrounding watershed.

The field trips are a tradition of more than 20 years for the team at the Potomac Valley Audubon Society’s Watershed Education program, and Wednesday was their first of the season. During the field trips, students do activities like using nets to catch small creatures in the waterways and testing the water for chemicals.

“I always tell them that they’re being like scientists today,” said Laurel Schwartz, watershed specialist and Audubon Discovery Camp director.

Throughout the day, the students go through a set of stations, where they learn to identify macroinvertibrates in the water and what they can tell us about water quality, build their own water filter, test the water for pH, dissolved oxygen and temperature and go on a hike around the park identifying habitats of local animals.

According to Schwartz, Poor House Farm Park is a particularly good spot for this type of lesson because of the Tuscarora Creek. Being so close to the creek’s headwaters, the students are able to learn a lot about indicators for water quality and find plenty of critters along the way.

“They’re really getting a good snapshot of a fairly healthy waterway here,” Schwartz said.

The field trip follows several weeks of classroom visits from staff at the Potomac Audubon Society, where students learn more about the watershed and the science that goes into studying it.

The program is available to every fourth-grader in the county thanks to funding from the City of Martinsburg and the Berkeley County Stormwater District. Students in neighboring Jefferson and Morgan counties also get a chance to participate in a similar program at either Morgan’s Grove Park or Cacapon State Park.

Schwartz said the goal of the program is to teach students more about the world around them and give them a reason to start caring for the environment around them at an early age.

“First and foremost, our goal with this program is to make environmental stewards — to make people that are future adults that will care about the environment and make good decisions whether they stay here in Martinsburg, Berkeley County or whether they go somewhere else in their lives,” Schwartz said.

“If a kid comes out and has a good time today and has a good experience with nature, and that’s a memory that they can take with them into adulthood, then I’m happy with that, as well.”