HTC students scour up mussels at LCC

MONTROSE – A program that puts kids in hip-waders and in the sometimes-heavy sludge of Mississippi River backwaters created some fun out-of-classroom science work for Holy Trinity Catholic 7th graders Thursday morning.
As part of a project around gathering river mussels out of the mud in about two feet of water east of the Lee County Conservation Center in Montrose, the students got in a little fun and a little work.
Students worked in two different groups with one group getting into canoes and rowing in the lily pads of the backwaters, while the other group donned hip waders and walked out in the river looking for the bivalve mollusks.
Lee County Conservationist Clay Steele led the class. He has led additional classes with Fort Madison and will also host Central Lee next week.
Steele said the conservation center doesn’t track the data anymore, but they did for several years as freshwater mussels are considered extremely endangered and any work done regarding the Mississippi River has to relocate mussels in the area.
HTC instructor Mike Klesner said the program isn’t part of the student’s curriculum, but presented a unique opportunity to get them learning opportunities outside the classroom.
“We don’t really study it in our standards, but it’s a field day where the kids are outside and have some hands-on experience,” Klesner said.

“Some of these kids have never been on the river, even though they live next to it. Some of them have never been in a canoe before. And a lot of these kids don’t get these outdoor experiences anymore. This is incredible that Climax partners with the conservation center to do this. It’s just a great opportunity for our kids. You can’t pass that up.”
Four of the adults that accompanied the students were employees of Climax in Fort Madison, owned by Freeport-McMoRan. The Freeport-McMoran Foundation in 2023 provided a community investment grant of $25,000 to Lee County Conservation to establish and sustain an outdoor classroom.  In 2025, the classroom, along with volunteers from Climax Molybdenum and partners with Lee County Conservation supported educational field trips to learn about the freshwater mussels. 
Overall, this is the fourth year Climax has provided support to this activity for 7th grade science students. Science teachers accompany the students on field trips that include canoeing, mussel collecting/education, pond netting and education on water quality testing.
Fort Madison schools brought 80 students down last week.
“From listening to them, these kids had a lot of fun, even the ones that went in over their boots,”  Klesner said.
Caroline Sestito, a coordinator for Lee County Conservation, said there were two days with Fort Madison students with 80 students each day and Central Lee will bring down 50 students each day for two days.
Steele had the students separate the different types of mussels that could be found in the river and then track whether they were dead or alive. The live mussels are completely closed up while the dead mollusks will have open shells.
The students scoured the bottom of the shallow river bed in the hip-waders feeling around for the shells. When they pulled them out, they would put them in buckets for about 10 minutes of inspections, and then they were returned to the water.