In the early 1990s, a group of scout parents sat around a kitchen table considering how they could enhance science education using Pittsburgh’s rivers. That discussion ultimately led to the creation of RiverQuest, and over the past 15 years the nonprofit has taught some 15,000 people about life in our rivers.

 

In the early years, RiverQuest used two Navy yard patrol boats, and the wooden crafts could hold 35-40 passengers for educational cruises. As those boats ended their useful lives, RiverQuest took a big step – constructing a green boat in Florida and Alabama. After a few ups and downs the 91-foot, 85-ton “Explorer” made its way to Pittsburgh, powered by low-sulphur diesel and or batteries or hybrid fuel. With a hull of recycled steel, solar panels on the roof, and wall board and carpeting made of recycled materials, “It’s a green boat from philosophy to operation,” said RiverQuest executive director Paul King.

 

Explorer can carry up to 90 students, and its and RiverQuest’s mission, King said, is “simply to connect people to the environment through the medium of the rivers.” The school education programs go from April through June and September to November. Throughout the summer months, RiverQuest hosts camps and other programs. Of the 15,000 people who’ve learned with RiverQuest, about two-thirds have been school students throughout the region. On Saturdays, RiverQuest holds one-hour sailings for adults and the general public.

 

The basic environmental science school program has youngsters on the river for four and a half hours. Broken into groups of eight to 10, students take samples of life in the river. They drag a net to college micro-organisms and aquatic life from the 18-20-feet deep Pittsburgh pool, and they examine their findings under microscopes. They also use a clam-shell scoop to pick up chunks of the river bottom mud, analyzing them to determine what’s in the soil. Through a variety of means of analysis, the students go through different stations and draw conclusions about the vitality of the rivers.

 

“The rivers are doing well,” King said. “Back when I was young, there were very few fish in the river. Now the Fish and Boat Commission tells us there are more than 120 species in the three rivers. And we’ve had a couple of high-profile fishing tournaments here in the last several years.”

 

For King and RiverQuest, another key goal is helping people understand that the fish and the rivers are important parts of the regional tourism economy. RiverQuest’s second school big program is called “Triple E” for economics, environment and energy. “We talk about how the rivers serve as a fundamental part of our economy, including the shipping of coal and other materials.” 

 

In a one-day program, RiverQuest teaches local teachers the key issues in environmental science, a subject the state now requires to be part of school offerings. “We give teachers a captain’s chest – a box of slides, videos, and other materials they can use for the four- or five-day program in the classroom,” King said. “Usually as a culmination, they put it together with the program on the boat.”

 

The Pittsburgh Foundation gave RiverQuest a $100,000 grant to develop a pilot program with the Frick Environmental Charter School, helping build environmental education into every grade. “If the fifth grade comes this year, then when they come back as sixth-graders next year, we build up and do a more robust program,” King said. “As their education and skills go up, the RiverQuest program will adjust accordingly.” 

 

King hopes to extend the pilot project to other districts. “The Pittsburgh Foundation grant is really a sea-change program for us. In part with programs like ours, with Riverlife and Friends of the Riverfront, the vitality and use of the rivers is becoming much more apparent throughout the broader community and city.