Category: Updates

Salmon swimming upstream at McLane Creek Nature Trail

Students are strapping on their boots and raincoats to explore trails alongside salmon spawning creeks! We’ve also been restoring riparian habitat near spawning grounds.

Things are coming full circle at South Sound GREEN. Classes are expanding on their experience with water quality by getting to see the salmon that rely on water ways we’ve been testing at. McLane Creek has seen a lot of our students this month, and even more Chum salmon. Kids are getting the chance to connect the pieces of testing, conservation, and the salmon life cycle. 

Some students are also getting the opportunity make a positive impact within their local environment. We spent time this month with students to planting native species and removing invasive species along a tributary to McLane Creek. We even saw salmon making their way upstream! Students really enjoyed expressing their nurturing side, as they plant native trees and shrubs, and spending time outdoors as they clipped, dug up, and removed Himalayan blackberries. 

November’s Teens in Thurston event was put together in partnership with Thurston County Food Bank. Teen volunteers helped with some tougher projects at the Lydia Hawk Elementary School garden that aren’t suitable for elementary students. The garden is in good shape after our volunteers cleared out some less desired grass and tree roots. If you or someone you know is a high school age student with an interest in environmental volunteer work please contact Sam Nadell at snadell@thurstoncd.com.

Student reading nitrate test results at Pioneer Park, courtesy of Amy Schutte

October means we’ve got salmon on our minds. Students from all over Thurston County have taken to their local waterways to conduct water quality tests and consider how our environment is impacting salmon. 

South Sound G.R.E.E.N. is still out in the field with Watershed Explorers field trips, too. At these trips and at Water Quality Monitoring trips we’re asking students to look into their communities and home to consider what their watershed means to them, as well as how we impact our watersheds. 

We visited schools to help students practice tests in the classroom before field trips. We’ve also been supporting teachers by the creeks, streams, lakes and rivers of our watersheds. Students are eager to test water that salmon and other wildlife are really coming into contact with and that many things, including people, rely on. They have been ready! Kids come to the site prepared by their experiences in the classroom and take on their tasks with confidence and enthusiasm. 

SSG had a blast hosting a kids activity at the Thurston Conservation District’s annual Harvest Festival. Kids got to use native plant coloring sheets and glue eco-confetti on them (hole-punched leaves!). 

October’s Teens in Thurston event was put together by the Thurston Conservation District in partnership with City of Olympia Parks. Teen volunteers helped run an orca-themed activity booth at Squaxin Park. They also planted native plants and toured the beach. If you or someone you know is a high school age student with an interest in environmental volunteer work please contact Sam Nadell at snadell@thurstoncd.com.

South Sound G.R.E.E.N. is welcoming fall by getting outdoors with students and teachers again. We have been gearing up to get back out into the field with the community, and now the time has come! 

This September, we’ve been taking elementary students on our Watershed Explorers field trips. Students are visiting sites near their school to learn more about their watershed. At the site, they conduct several water quality tests, including the lively benthic macroinvertebrates activity- or “stream bugs”. They are learning what the various results mean for their watershed and how the things that happen in their watershed impact water quality. 

Our water quality monitoring season is just around the corner, which means it’s prep time for us and teachers all around our watersheds. This month we held a training for new and returning teachers in the Water Quality Monitoring program, to ensure that everyone feels confident and excited for upcoming water quality testing days. We were lucky enough to host this training at the newly constructed Kalama Creek Hatchery. This site gave us insight into the world of salmon hatcheries and how connected water quality is to salmon. Teachers got to practice tests right on the edge of Kalama Creek and get a comprehensive understanding of our Water Quality Monitoring program. 

September’s Teens in Thurston event was put together in partnership with Capitol Land Trust. We got together again at the Inspire Kids Preserve to support the restoration work happening there and see the beautiful area. We had a great time removing Ivy and “Stinky Bob”. If you or someone you know is a high school age student with an interest in environmental volunteer work please contact Sam Nadell at snadell@thurstoncd.com.

Summer is coming to a close, and with the school year right around the corner South Sound GREEN programs are about to start back up! We’re looking forward to an amazing school year, full of new teachers, new programs, and new partners! 

September is a time to get everyone ready for our Water Quality Monitoring program, and we have multiple training opportunities. For teachers, we will be hosting our annual Water Quality Training on Saturday, September 21st, now for the first time at the newly built Kalama Creek Hatchery! We will be offering free clock hours for this event, which you can register for here: https://www.pdenroller.org/esd113/catalog/174490. Additionally, we have a number of water quality programs that we often need volunteer help for, and we will be hosting a Community Partner and Chaperone water quality training on Wednesday, September 18th. If you think you may be interested in helping with our amazing field programs this fall, register here! https://forms.gle/LBzUg9hgZjrhoE83A

For high school students, we will be starting up our Teens in Thurston high school volunteer group again this month! We will be doing a project with Capitol Land Trust on Saturday, September 28th, and interested students can receive updates by signing up here: https://forms.gle/ncqwf3JE1AYbrAE49. 

Stay tuned for more exciting updates from South Sound GREEN throughout the school year!

Summer is well underway and South Sound GREEN has been enjoying the extra time to get organized and prepare for the 2024-2025 school year! But just because it’s summer and most students are not in school, that does not mean that field trips have to come to a complete stop. This month, we helped out with STREAMS (Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Art, Math, and Service/Stewardship), a Tumwater School District program for middle school students. With South Sound GREEN, students participated in a benthic macroinvertebrate lab and tested the Deschutes River for dissolved oxygen, nitrates, pH, turbidity, and temperature. When testing water with students, we like to discuss how humans impact ecosystem health in both negative and positive ways and enjoy hearing student ideas. They always have great thoughts about how they can protect and support the waterways within the SSG watershed region and we were happy to be able to have those conversations even in the summer.  

We also said goodbye to our amazing AmeriCorps member Ariel this month! Over her 10.5 month term, Ariel made amazing impacts on local students and TCD. Notably, Ariel took on the role of coordinating SSG’s 3rd grade nearshore trips this year, allowing us to personally interact with and educate all 3rd grade classes within the Olympia School District and bring them to local beaches. SSG reached new heights this year in terms of program offerings, and Ariel played a large part in making that possible. Always bringing a positive attitude and willingness to help in any situation, Ariel was an incredible co-worker and community partner, and all of us, from SSG to TCD to the greater Thurston County community, are sad to see her go. We wish her luck in all of her future endeavors!  

Though there is still another month before the school year begins, now is a great time to reach out if you are interested in becoming a volunteer with South Sound GREEN! If you have any experience in education, water quality, intertidal biology, salmon, or other environmental education fields, please reach out to Sam at snadell@thurstoncd.com with the subject line “SSG Volunteer Interest – YOUR NAME.” We are excited for the year to come as we are looking forward to working with returning volunteers and would love to have some new volunteers join us in our programs! We will also be looking for an Evergreen intern through the CCAS program soon, so if you or someone you know is an Evergreen student, please keep an eye out for information.