Healthy Waters Institute E-Newsletter Fall 2007
The salmon are coming! The salmon are coming!
Revised Salmon Watch Field Trip Evaluation and Reporting
Bear Creek Watershed Update
Johnson Creek Watershed Update
Marys River Watershed Update
Upper Deschutes Watershed Update
Upcoming Events
The salmon are coming! The salmon are coming!
The Healthy Waters Institute (HWI) welcomes you back to another year of salmon spawning, water quality monitoring, storm drain stenciling and habitat restoration. We have an exciting year of programs and projects ahead and look forward to adding to the 16,000 students we reached statewide last year. Thank you for all of your efforts and commitment towards educating the next generation of watershed stewards! You are part of our collective mission along with the 300 teachers, 300 volunteers and more than 80 partners HWI worked together with during the 2006-2007 school year.
HWI looks forward to continuing support for students in the classroom and in the field through innovative and dynamic programs and incentives. In addition to teacher grants of up to $500 each to support students in connecting with their local waters, HWI is pleased to announce that we will be offering student grants and scholarships. Student grants will be available for up to $200 to help high school students participate in Independent Projects and HWI will be awarding four student scholarship awards to juniors and seniors in the amount of $1,500 each. Please check out our website for updated information on how to apply.
We want to provide all students with the opportunity to experience their local watershed. The time is ripe for supporting HWI and other environmental education programs in our schools. Congressman John Sarbanes of Maryland and Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island recently introduced legislation that strengthens and expands environmental education in America's classrooms and reconnects children with nature. These bills, each entitled the No Child Left Inside Act of 2007, were introduced in the House (H.R.3036) and the Senate (S.1981). Visit www.eenclb.org for more information and to find out how you can support this initiative.
Thank you for working with HWI and helping to forge a lifelong caretaking bond between our students and their local watersheds ensuring the health of Oregon’s rivers and streams for generations!
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Revised Salmon Watch Field Trip Evaluation and Reporting
Starting this year (2007), we will be recording and compiling data and observations made on Salmon Watch field trips. We will be posting statewide data to our website and encourage you to provide students with the opportunity to see how their results compare with their peers. We promote student to student communication and appreciate your timeliness in reporting results.
1. Please use the most current evaluation, not the evaluation from the curriculum book.
2. You should report the average temperature, pH, DO, and turbidity.
3. Please note any sampling conditions that might affect your results.
We have also added a place to record:
1. List of predominant aquatic insects species found
2. List of predominant plant species found
3. List other wildlife found
Please allow time during the field trip to collect this data as well as class time to compile and average for reporting.
If you have any questions, please contact Mary Ann Schmidt at 503.222.9091 x20 or maryann@ortrout.org
Click here to find the most current version of the Salmon Watch Teacher Evaluation.
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Bear Creek Watershed Update
We are looking forward to a full and exciting fall in the Bear Creek Watershed. We start out with Salmon. Salmon Watch training is on Sept. 15th at Cantrall Buckley Park. Salmon Watch season begins Oct 1st and runs through the first week of November. HWI and Bear Creek Watershed Education Partners (BCWEP) are teaming up to run the macro-invertebrate station at this year’s Bear Creek Salmon Festival on Saturday Oct 6th from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at North Mountain Park in Ashland.
HWI and its partners, BCWEP, Rogue Valley Council of Governments, Rogue Valley Sewerage Services, OSU Extension, and Bear Creek Watershed Council will be offering a Watershed Tour for Educators on Oct 12th, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. BCWEP along with several partners has created a virtual watershed tour for educators that can be used in classrooms. A draft of the virtual watershed tour will be provided to educators on the Oct 12th watershed tour for their review and comments.
HWI would also like to welcome our new Regional Education Assistant, Sam Whitridge, who joined us this August. Sam will be working on Salmon Watch, service learning and independent projects, and delivering other HWI education programs such as 1000 Drops and Hometown Waters.
For information about HWI in Bear Creek please feel free to contact Susan Cross or Sam Whitridge at 541-773-1039 or at susan@ortrout.org, or sam@ortrout.org.
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Johnson Creek Watershed Update
The second pilot year of the Healthy Waters Institute in the Johnson Creek Basin has been a year of growth in the numbers of students connecting to their home waters through monitoring, restoration, and student led service projects. Partnerships have been created as well as strengthened. The Nature in Neighborhoods grant awarded to the David Douglas School brought us together with Metro, City of Portland Environmental Services, Portland Parks, and the Johnson Creek Watershed Council to expand watershed education in the basin.
Some of the projects supported by this grant included:
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Ventura Park Elementary incorporated 1000 Drops curriculum as well as BES Clean Rivers education programs through all grade levels with both classroom and field- based learning.
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Fir Ridge Campus students were trained to support both classroom instruction in water quality testing as well as field instruction. There was also a restoration component where older students helped the elementary students re-plant a site where a major project was underway to improve salmon habitat.
Click here for more information about the Nature In Neighborhoods Programs.
Service Learning where students identify a community need and work outside the classroom was a focus in the spring where teachers and community partners gathered at Leach Botanical Garden to learn about opportunities for service projects. Presenters included school district, parks and environmental services staff, as well as the Johnson Creek Watershed Stewardship Coordinator. In June, along with the PSU School for Science Education, we hosted a watershed tour where teachers and community partners toured six sites in the basin where students have been doing monitoring and restoration as well as potential sites for future projects. The program “Walking Softly” was also presented, where students help to develop protocols for visiting and studying natural areas.
Looking forward to another year of growth with both the classroom support provided by 1000 Drops as well as expanding opportunities for service learning. Six high schools programs will be part of Youth Engaged, a Nature in Neighborhoods grant awarded to the council, which along with the Student Watershed Research Project (SWRP), will support student monitoring projects as well as having student groups adopt sites in the basin for ongoing restoration.
Click here for more information about the Johnson Creek Watershed Council.
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Marys River Watershed Update
Pacific Northwest Salmon struggle to return to their birth stream each year. This gets harder and harder, and Oregon Trout is trying to find solutions for fewer and fewer salmon making this journey. To Pacific Northwest tribes, salmon are very important to their culture, in addition to the intricate web of life in an ecosystem. The interconnectedness of fragile webs, once unraveled, cannot be woven together again. Renée Roman Nose, a Tribal member from the Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, has been added to the Oregon Trout staff through the Americorp’s LINKS program, and is committed to finding Tribal teachers for the Salmon Watch field trips. Each fall, hundreds of students make their way to local Salmon natal streams to witness the natural event of anadromous fish, who have a life cycle that starts if fresh water, moves to the ocean, and returns to the natal stream using their instincts and sense of smell. Pictured here with her son Wokawokamosh, a high school student at Crescent Valley High School, a goal of the Healthy Waters Institute is to include stories of importance through the teachings of Native people, and encourage high school students to take on leadership roles as instructors in their educational programs.
There are two new positions in the Marys River basin, Regional Education Assistant Jamie Greydanus a full year Americorps position and Renée Roman Nose an Americorps LINKS position.
Salmon Watch Corvallis High School Training
(Outside participants welcome, contact Kim Carson)
September 7, 10, 11
Session 1: 7:40 a.m. – 9:15 a.m.
Session 2: 11:15 a.m. - 12:50 p.m.
Salmon Watch Kick Off meeting
September 13th
West Eugene Wetlands
R.S.V.P. by Monday September 10th
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Upper Deschutes Watershed Update
The programs and projects of the Healthy Waters Institute in the upper Deschutes watersheds had a stellar year last year! Thanks to awesome partnerships with Wolftree, the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council, Sisters Ranger District and many more, we succeeded in connecting hundreds of local students to waters of the Deschutes River, Tumalo Creek, and Whychus Creek. Molly Grove’s class from Pilot Butte Middle School discovered the beauty of the Metolius River in our Salmon Watch program, Karen Schlaich’s fourth graders from High Lakes Elementary followed the path of their water drop in 1000 Drops, Kris Omlid’s students from Pine Ridge Elementary created artwork using the leaves of the riparian plants that they later restored to Farewell Bend Park, and Eric Beck and the cool kids from REALMS composed beautiful poetry as they sat in the snow next to the bubbling waters of Tumalo Creek! According to Kerry Morton from Pine Ridge Elementary, “The Healthy Waters Institute has helped me help my students care more about the Deschutes River by hiking alongside it and exploring it in their own way.”
This fall we have a new line-up of opportunities for teachers and students to get involved with the Healthy Waters Institute. In addition to our award-winning Salmon Watch program for middle and high school students, we will be inviting local classrooms to discover the wonders of Whychus Creek through art projects and creative writing. We will be awarding $4,000 for the supplies, equipment, or transportation expenses that help to connect eligible students and teachers to local waters. Between October 15th and October 25th we will be partnering with the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council and the Bend Metro Parks and Recreation District to restore the riparian zone on the Deschutes River across from Farewell Bend Park. A new park, called Riverbend, will be emerging and we invite local students to work with the Healthy Waters Institute to become active watershed stewards as they replant much-needed native vegetation to the streambanks.
To apply for grant funds, hear more about opportunities to participate in the Riverbend Park project, receive class sets of Healthy Waters journals, or to learn more about the work of the Healthy Waters Institute in Central Oregon, please email Kolleen Yake at kolleen@ortrout.org or call 541-382-6103 x33.
Upcoming Events
Connecting Classrooms to Place and Community: Giving Students a Reason to Learn
October 12, 2007
8:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
The Discovery Center
5000 Discovery Drive
The Dalles, Oregon
For more information contact Mary Ann Schmidt at maryann@ortrout.org or 503-222-9091 x20
Oregon Science Teachers Association (OSTA) Fall Conference
October 12, 2007
La Salle High School
11999 SE Fuller Rd.
Milwaukie, Oregon
For more information contact Bernie Carlson at 503-534-9112
Deschutes River Restoration: Educating the Next Generation of Watershed Stewards
October 15-25th, 2007
Riverbend Park (across from Farewell Bend Park)
Deschutes River
Bend, Oregon
Engage your students in the active riparian restoration of our newest riverside park—Riverbend.
For more information contact kolleen@ortrout.org.
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Healthy Waters Institute . 65 SW Yamhill Street . Suite 300 . Porltand OR 97204 . 503.222.9091