The Potomac Valley Audubon Society is sponsoring a Jan. 21 Natural History Workshop on watersheds. The workshop will be held from 10 a.m.-12 noon at the Society’s Cool Spring Nature Preserve, which is located at 1469 Lloyd Road, about six miles southwest of Charles Town.

The workshop will be led by PVAS Program Director Ellen Murphy.

It is intended primarily for Master Naturalists but open to anyone with an interest.

However, space will be limited and pre-registration is required. To register and get directions go to the PVAS website at www.potomacaudubon.org.

There will be a fee of $10 for PVAS members and $15 for nonmembers.

The workshop will provide an overview of the subject of watersheds. It will explain what watersheds are, why they are important to the environment, and the efforts underway to study and improve them.

In a nutshell, watersheds are areas of land, large and small, that drain all their surface water and rainfall into a common outlet, such as a lake, river or ocean estuary.

They are important because the ways land is used (or abused) within them can have major impacts on key water resources.

A prime example of this is the Chesapeake Bay watershed, of which our region is a part. A major national effort is underway to improve the Bay’s water quality, and many local organizations are working to reduce pollution in local watersheds that feed into the Bay.

This workshop is one of a series of Natural History Workshops on different natural history topics the Society will be sponsoring in 2017.

These workshops are intended for people who are interested in learning about particular natural history topics in considerable depth but cannot commit to pursue the much more comprehensive natural history education available through PVAS’s Potomac Valley Master Naturalist Program, which can take a year or more to complete.

For more information go to www.potomacaudubon.org or contact Krista Hawley at adultprograms@ potomacaudubon.org or 703-303-1026.