They tell how owls catch their prey, they teach about Eklutna glacier's ablation, and they explain how Alaskans quench their thirst.

They are the interpretive panels that the State Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation recently posted at Eklutna Lake, made possible because of a 10-year partnership between the division and Alaska Pacific University.

James King, division director, recognized David McGivern, APU professor and chairperson of its Outdoor Studies Department, for his role in the partnership during a celebration at Eklutna Lake Oct. 14.

McGivern's students created the seven new panels. They are products of one of several student projects McGivern supervised throughout the history of the partnership.

"This is about allowing students to find their own interpretive voice, but at the same time, holding them to professional interpretive standards," McGivern said.

Students created the panels as part of an 11-week course called "Alaska Natural History Interpretation," held every fall semester. They worked on the Eklutna Lake panels in the fall of 2008.

They started by turning in a research paper on their topic. Then they did a series of presentations.

"I use the freight train analogy with the students," McGivern said, because standing up to present can be like staring into the headlight of an oncoming freight train.

"They put on a shirt and tie and get out in front of professionals, and talk about the ideas they explored, the language they chose, and the graphics they selected."

Then employees from the Interpretation and Education branch of the division gave the students critical feedback and coordinated with them to produce useful, informative panels.

The panels are beneficial to Eklutna lake visitors, park officials said.

"The interpretation is the most important, that people can come here and learn something about the park," King said.

The partnership helps state parks stretch its budget, King said. The division paid for the physical signs and maintenance of their kiosks, but they cannot support the groundwork like the research that came from the students and McGivern.

The seven new panels at Eklutna Lake teach their readers about the life of the lake.

One, titled, "Prey, they never hear it coming," used graphics of an owl to show how it uses its enlarged eyes and sharp talons to catch shrews and rodents.

Another titled, "Satisfying Alaska's Thirst," showed how drinking water from Eklutna Lake reaches Anchorage. Eklutna Lake could provide water to everyone in Alaska, the panel read.

Other panels explained Eklutna Lake's milky appearance, described the characteristics of Dall sheep, revealed facts about the Eklutna hydroelectric power plant, and narrated the Dena'ina story of how Eklutna got its name.

A panel designed by Jenny Baker, now graduated, explained the ablation of Eklutna glacier, which is the rate at which ice and snow evaporates or melts. The glacier is retreating.

Baker used her work from a May 2007 course in "Glaciology and Glacier Travel" to complete her panel. In it, students traveled for three weeks along the Eklutna traverse.

All the photographs in the panel are Baker's. She showed two mountain views, as well as the students digging density pits to determine the glacier's mass balance, "the difference between the amount of ice that accumulates and the amount of ice that melts," the panel read.

"It took a lot of time and energy, a lot of work with computers, digital archiving, and changing the formatting," Baker said.

She said that when the class began, many students did not have graphic design experience.

But, "it's interesting to be able to go into the class and think that I might be able to be published like this," she said. "It's very cool."

Previously, students worked on interpretive panels for Summit Lake, the Matanuska Glacier State Recreation site, the future Bird Creek Campground, and other sites around Alaska. The fall 2009 class is creating interpretive panels for three shelter cabins along the Iditarod Trail.

"There is ownership that comes from a student that spends time looking at and working in a park," King said.

"The students certainly invested in their work," McGivern said. "I think that they enjoyed the project very much. They're all thrilled that it's up there."