Program Highlights

South Sound GREEN, Updates

Monthly Update – October 2026

Stephanie Bishop
A student from Pleasant Glade Elementary tests dissolved oxygen

Happy October, everyone! South Sound GREEN has been hard at work this month with water quality testing! Schools across Thurston County have been testing their local waterways to help us get the big picture on how healthy our watersheds are and if they are good homes for our native salmon species. This month, we’ve been conducting practice lessons in the classroom as well as bringing students out in the field to community sites. This has been a great opportunity for students to gain hands-on learning experiences and it’s been amazing to see students get so excited about water quality! The data students collect will be used and presented at our annual Student GREEN congress in March.

This month, Teens in Thurston were working alongside other volunteers to restore riparian areas and remove invasive plants in Squaxin Park for Orca Recovery Day! It was a really fun time. Next month, volunteers will be volunteering at Wolf Haven International. If you or someone you know is a high school student looking for volunteer hours and is interested in working outside, please contact Sam Nadell (snadell@thurstoncd.com) or visit our website for more information!

South Sound GREEN, Updates

Monthly Update – September 2026

Stephanie Bishop
Student volunteers at the Sorghum Festival

Well, it’s that time of year again! The leaves begin to change, children begin to go back to school…and our water quality testing season begins! This month, we are focusing on getting ready for our upcoming fall field trips. Taking inventory, delivering supplies, and meeting with teachers and staff, we have been busy preparing for the upcoming month. We are excited for next month and look forward to all the learning (and fun) we have planned!

On top of preparing for water quality testing, we are also helping out with some local community events for Latino Conservation Week! We hosted a table at the Encuentranos en Woodard Bay event where we provided stream bug samples from Pioneer Park for people to look at and study. We also helped out at the Festival del Salmon event at Tumwater Falls by demonstrating salmon dissections for visitors.

TNT is also starting back up! This month we brought teens out to Haki Farms to help celebrate their Sorghum Festival! Volunteers had the opportunity to help harvest and process sorghum, and after the work was done, they were able to enjoy the music festival. If you or someone you know is a high school student looking for volunteer hours and is interested in working outside, please contact Sam Nadell (snadell@thurstoncd.com) for more information.

And finally, we would like to welcome two new members to our education team! Avery Snook has been hired on as our new education assistant, and Shannon Allen is our AmeriCorps member for the 2026-2027 school year. We are excited to welcome both to the team, and look forward to the year ahead!

South Sound GREEN, Updates

Monthly Update – June 2026

Stephanie Bishop
Teachers walking down the boardwalk of Boston Harbor Marina

And with that, South Sound GREENS has wrapped up the 2025-2026 school year! Through rain, shine, and all the seasons, we got thousands of students outdoors to learn about our wonderful watershed.

None of this would be possible without teachers. As a thank you, we like to support our teachers by inviting them to our Summer Institute for Teachers. This is a 3-day professional development event curated for teachers participating in South Sound GREEN, Nisqually River Education Project, or Chehalis Basin Education Consortium educational programming that is hosted by the Billy Frank Jr Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge.

Every year we have workshops and speakers related to a theme. This year’s theme was Tides of Change: Learning About Puget Sound Recovery. There were some fascinating conversations and teachers got firsthand experience doing educational activities they can bring back to the classroom!

This wouldn’t be an outdoor educational event without some actual outdoor education. On top of learning at the Refuge, teachers were taken on their very own field trips! In the morning we went to Boston Harbor to learn all about life in the estuary, from nudibranchs to plankton. After some much needed cool drinks, we moved on over to Meyer’s Point Environmental Field Station. Here teachers got to dissect an oyster, learn about Indigenous archeology, experience forestry practices, and make a yummy seaweed salad!

To our community partners and volunteers, thank you! It is an honor to work with so many people who are just as excited as us to teach and learn about our environment.

See you next school year!

Environmental Education, Nearshore, South Sound GREEN, Updates

Monthly Update – May 2026

Stephanie Bishop
3rd graders at Burfoot playing CRAB-O while holding out a hairy shore crab

With Summer just around the corner, South Sound GREEN has been joining students in our Nearshore and Eye on Nature field experiences!

8th graders from the Olympia School District are traversing Meyer’s Point as they rotate through various stations run by some of our community partners. These students get to pull invasive blackberry, learn about forestry practices, dissect an oyster, and explore the mudflat with all its critters. Through mud, rain, and shine, these middle schoolers got a day full of exciting environmental experiences! A huge thank you to our community partners that make these trips possible.

May also means it’s time for our 3rd grade Nearshore field trips! 3rd graders from Olympia have been exploring the intertidal zone of Burfoot Park near Boston Harbor. All throughout the month they’ve been learning about different plant adaptations, participating in an intertidal scavenger hunt, and getting CRAB-O as they search for hairy shore crabs along the beach. It’s such a joy to help foster respect for the outdoors in students so early on in their education. Thanks to our volunteers for sharing their knowledge with the students!

We also had our very first Eye on Nature field trip this month. Students from Garfield Elementary school came to the Billy Frank Jr Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge to learn all about plants and animals. 5th graders in the morning started with either nature mapping or ethnobotany, either logging the animals they found on the trail or investigating plants and how humans interact with them. After lunch at the twin barns, the groups would swap and experience the other activity. Some students even got to spot the elusive white-faced Ibis!

We finished the last of our North Thurston Public School Nearshore trips at Squaxin Park this month. Thanks to Olympia Parks for their help to make these trips possible!

We also joined our Envirothon teams at the Washington State Envirothon, hosted by Okanogan Conservation District at Conconcully State Park! High school students from all over the state competed in aquatics, soils, forestry, wildlife, and an oral presentation to try and make it to the national competition. A huge hurrah! for all the teams that competed. Great job everyone!

South Sound GREEN, Updates

Monthly Update – April 2026

Stephanie Bishop
High school students competing at the Soils station at the South Puget Sound Regional Envirothon at the Billy Frank Jr Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge

April showers are no match for South Sound GREEN! This month we’ve gotten back into the groove with our North Thurston Public Schools Nearshore trips and Envirothon.

We started our NTPS Nearshore high school trips at Meyers Point. Rain or shine, students got to choose between two career paths – Water Quality Technician and Restoration Ecologist. The WQ Techs got to rotate between the water quality monitoring and plankton stations while the Restoration Ecologists rotated between nature mapping and doing riparian survey work. It’s great to see these students try out new things and figure out what kind of work post school appeals to them! Soon, we will be starting our NTPS Nearshore and 8th grade OSD trips at Squaxin Park. Stay tuned!

April 23rd was our South Puget Sound Regional Envirothon competition! Teams from 13 different high schools and 5 counties congregated at the Billy Frank Jr Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge to put their environmental knowledge to the test. The students participated in hands on environmental exams about aquatics, soils, forestry, and wildlife. On top of that, they had to prepare and present an oral presentation on this year’s current issue – Non-Point Source Pollution. At the end of the day, the competitors got to attend a career panel featuring local environmentalists and ask questions about their paths that lead them to this work. It was a great day filled with learning and friendly competition. A huge thank you to the students and advisors who participated, our volunteers, and the Refuge! If you or someone you know is interested in the competition and want to know more, reach out to Sam Nadell at snadell@thurstoncd.com.