Program Highlights

Environmental Education, Salmon, South Sound GREEN, Updates

Monthly Update – November 2025

Stephanie Bishop
Emma, the Billy Frank Jr Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge AmeriCorps member, points out salmon spawning behavior to Rainier High School students at the McLane Creek Nature Trail.

November started with us finishing the last of our Fall water quality trips, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t still getting students outdoors! It’s salmon spawning field trip month for us at South Sound GREEN.

Chum salmon have been making their way back home from the sea to spawn. Students gathered at the McLane Creek Nature Trail to observe the very species they’ve been doing water quality testing for. From crossing over to making redds, students watched excitedly as the salmon exhibited their spawning behaviors. It was awesome to watch students make connections between salmon and water quality!

Stay tuned for some of our favorite events coming up, such as Student GREEN Congress and South Puget Sound Regional Envirothon! If you are interested in helping out in the future with either of these events, please contact Sam Nadell at snadell@thurstoncd.

Environmental Education, Updates, Water Quality

Monthly Update – October 2025

Stephanie Bishop
Students at Pioneer Park doing a dissolved oxygen test.

October brings cozy Fall weather and our water quality monitoring trips! Students all over the county have been conducting water quality tests, including four schools that are new to testing as of the past year! We’ve spent this month conducting practice lessons in the classroom and taking students out into the field to their community sites. It’s been a blast getting these students, their families, and their teachers pumped about water quality and salmon.

North Thurston schools have completed their Watershed Explorers field trips! In sun, rain, wind, and cold, every 5th grade student across eight schools gathered at their testing sites to collect water quality data as each student conducted each test. Using site surveys and the data gathered, students discussed what may be impacting the water quality and how their communities can work together to make improvements.

Orca Recovery Day was on the 18th and our volunteer group, Teens in Thurston (TnT) worked alongside other volunteers to help restore riparian and forested areas in Squaxin Park to support our Southern Resident Orcas! A beautiful mosaic art piece was created by the volunteers in celebration. If you or someone you know is a high school student looking for volunteer hours and enjoy working outside, please contact Sam Nadell (snadell@thurstoncd.com) for more information.

Updates

Monthly Update – September 2025

Stephanie Bishop
Teachers at our water quality practice testing at Kalama Creek Hatchery.

The school year has started again, and we know what that means… water quality testing! We’ve been getting ready in anticipation for our field trips this Fall and are excited to share all the learning (and fun) we have planned!

This month we’ve been meeting with teachers, taking inventory, delivering supplies, and doing water quality training with our community. Nine teachers gathered at the Nisqually Indian Tribe’s Kalama Creek Hatchery with South Sound GREEN and the Nisqually River Education Project. There they got to get some water quality practice in, observe the creek, and get a tour of this amazing facility as they learned about the connections between us, salmon, and the water. Whether you’re new or returning, we want to make sure everyone is feeling prepared and confident! A big thank you to everyone who was able to join us.

This month we also have our new AmeriCorps member joining us! Elijah Orr was an intern in the Fall of 2024 and has come back to continue educating students about water quality.

Updates

Monthly Update- July 2025

Stephanie Bishop

Photo collage from each month of the past school year

While students rest and refresh during a summer break, South Sound GREEN is resetting for the year to come! Behind the scenes may not be as exciting as our field programs and classroom lessons. However, this time really helps us to prepare for engaging students all school year long. We are grateful to have the time to clean up and reorganize.

South Sound GREEN takes a lot of time, energy, and enthusiastic people. If you or someone you know is interested in volunteering with us over the next school year, please reach out! Experience in education, water quality, intertidal biology, salmon, and other environmental education topics is very useful. If you are interested in joining our amazing group of volunteers and partners, please reach out to Sam at snadell@thurstoncd.com with the subject line “SSG Volunteer Interest – YOUR NAME.” We can’t wait to meet old and new faces when programming returns!

Updates

Monthly Update- June 2025

Stephanie Bishop

Teachers and staff gathered on the Pierce County Ferry. Photo by Tristan Olson. 

South Sound GREEN has just wrapped up the 2024-2025 school year with plenty of good memories and lots of proud moments. We had over 4600+ student interactions! From fall to winter to spring, we had programming throughout every month of the school year. 

Each year we love to support our teachers by inviting them to the Summer Institute for Teachers. This three-day professional development event is hosted at the Billy Frank Jr Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge and put together by South Sound GREEN, Nisqually River Education Project, and Chehalis Basin Education Consortium. Teachers attended workshops and lectures all about this year’s theme: Climate Resilience: Ecology & Community in South Puget Sound. They even went on their own field trip- to Anderson Island! On the island, we got to see all kinds of habitats, including prairies, forests, and intertidal. There was hiking, wrack line surveys, pigeon guillemot spotting, and a recycling relay race. Thank you to all of our partners, speakers, and breakout session hosts! We were excited to have so many experts available to our teachers. 

As always, we’d like to thank our community partners and volunteers. All of this is made possible by you and your enthusiasm for environmental education! Our watersheds are better stewarded by your efforts. We’d also like to give our well wishes to Kelly and Rachael, our Evergreen State College interns who finished their terms with us this month.  

We are looking forward to the next school year to come!