Eagle project to benefit Camas School District

CHS sophomore spent a year creating benthic bug display racks

Shane Southerland presents an benthic bug display rack, created from Western Red Cedar, to Camas School District Superintendent Mike Nerland.

Shane Southerland presents an benthic bug display rack, created from Western Red Cedar, to Camas School District Superintendent Mike Nerland. Photo by Danielle Frost.

After a year of combing streams and rivers for aquatic bugs, Shane Southerland’s sometimes painstaking Eagle Scout project is complete.

Southerland, 16, presented racks of what are known as “benthic larvae macro-invertebrates,” to the Camas School Board last Monday.

Collecting the bugs was a long and challenging process, and the Camas High School sophomore rallied scouting volunteers and friends in Washington, Wyoming, Kansas, Georgia, Utah, Montana and Oregon to help him with the project.

“It took a lot of weekends to collect all of these,” he said. “But I really enjoyed going to the rivers, that was the most fun part of this project.”

For more of this story, see the Camas-Washougal Post-Record print edition.