Click to Enlarge A rain garden gives the water that falls on your roof and sidewalks a chance to slow down before it drains into your local stream.   Watershed Works By Bonnie Chasteen, illustrations by Dave Besenger   Some words are so confusing! Take the words "woodshed" and "watershed," for example. A woodshed is something people build to store wood in for the winter. It has a roof to shed the rain and snow. Swords "woodshed" A watershed, on the other hand, is everything the rain and snow falls on. A watershed works like a sink that catches whatever you pour into it and funnel it down the drain. Whether you know it or not, you live in a water-shed. All earth's land masses are made up of lots of small, connected "watersheds" that drain water from the land to the oceans. The big rivers that flow through our state, (the Mississippi and the Missouri) are draining water from as far away as Montana and Minnesota. Those are the borders of the big watershed we live in. That water, along with the snow and rain that fall here, eventually drains into the Gulf of Mexico. Not surprising, another word for watershed is "drainage." How big is the watershed you live in? If you see ridges all around your house, like in the Ozarks, you live in a watershed that drains a small area. Perhaps a small stream starts in one of the mountains near your house and flows through your forest. The water (rain or melted snow) that falls in your watershed eventually flows into this stream, which later joins a river. If you don't see ridges where you live, like in west central Missouri, you probably live in a wide water-shed that gathers water from a large area, and even other watersheds. Catch and Release Watersheds work like catch-and-release in fishing, but they catch and release water. It's best when watersheds behave more like slow draining basins than deep, speedy sinks. Water that seeps through a watershed comes out cleaner than water that has rushed through it. Sinks that shed water slowly also provide better habitat for more plants and wildlife, including fish. Plants (especially deep-rooted native plants) help slow the flow of water through a watershed, even on steep slopes. Look around your neighborhood. Do slopes and ridges have forests, shrubs, flowers and grasses? Are your stream edges lined with wide "hallways" of trees, shrubs and grasses? In flat areas, do your rivers twist and meander through the landscape? If so, your watershed is pretty healthy. That means it does a good job of capturing, storing and slowly releasing the water that falls into it. A healthy watershed needs stable forests, grasslands, wetlands and meandering streams to slow down and clean the water it catches. In turn, a healthy watershed provides animals that live in it with good habitat, in the form of abundant food, clean water and sufficient shelter. Runaway Run-off What happens in a watershed when water has no place to rest, clean up and release its energy to help create habitat? This happens when forests are cut or burned too severely. It also happens when grass-lands are plowed under or grazed bare, or when wetlands are drained, streams are straightened, and fields are paved. The result is that water shoots through a water-shed so fast that it erodes soil, scours streams, kills fish and destroys wildlife habitat. The rushing water can also endanger lives and destroy property. We don't have to stop cutting trees, grazing livestock and building homes and towns to keep our watersheds in good working order. However, it helps to minimize these activities in places where water naturally likes to "stop and rest." That's why our state's efforts to restore wetlands, protect streams and re-establish native habitat are so important. How can you and your family help make your watershed more like a lazy basin and less like a speedy sink? Consider making a rain garden to catch runoff from your roof before it rushes downstream. All watersheds love rain gardens. These are little, miniature "watersheds" that slow down run-o? from your roof and lawn before it dashes off to your local stream or river on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. Rain gardens, full of native plants, also attract fun-to-watch wildlife to your yard. That's because they provide good habitat for birds, butterflies, toads, frogs, turtles and dragonflies. If you and your parents want to learn how to make a rain garden in your yard, visit the Grow Native! program at www.grownative.org. Click "Resources," then "Publications Available From Grow Native! "