Throughout the 2018-2019 school year, South Sound GREEN partnered with the Nisqually River Education Project to offer a series of workshops to area teachers focused on ocean acidification (OA). Teachers learned the basic chemistry behind OA, as well as some local monitoring efforts being conducted by NOAA, Pacific Shellfish Institute, Puget Sound regional tribes and more. The professional development culminated in field trips to Puget Sound beaches and marinas where students conducted their own studies to help them better understand the impacts of OA on subtidal and intertidal life.
Overall, 857 students visited Puget Sound as part of the CLAMSS program! South Sound GREEN staff coordinated with community partners to serve as station leaders including Pacific Shellfish Institute and beach naturalists from the Puget Sound Estuarium, and recruited and trained volunteer divers, biologists and community members interested in helping out. South Sound GREEN staff led a stations on water quality impacts on Puget Sound (utilizing the Enviroscape model as a tool to identify non-point source pollution impacts and ways kids can change their behavior to improve water quality), and on OA impacts to crab survival which included a quadrat study of the beach.
Overall, SSG volunteers contributed 136.5 volunteer hours for these trips! In addition, 82 volunteer chaperones attending with the schools contributed 323 volunteer hours for a combined 479.5 volunteer hours! Special thanks to NOAA’s B-WET Education Program for funding this program!
