Tag: South Sound GREEN

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 – January 2026

Stephanie Bishop
A student looking at benthics under a microscope.

Welcome back from winter break! Just because it’s still chilly outside doesn’t mean we aren’t going to get some outdoor education in. Our schedule was full of stream ‘bug’ lessons to complement our water quality education in the Fall and an MLK Day of Service with our Teens in Thurston volunteer group.

This month we visited classrooms of students who participated in our Fall water quality monitoring to show them another indicator of water health – benthic macroinvertebrates! We taught students about the importance of stream bugs, how they relate to salmon, and then grouped up around different bins full of water, stream sediment, and real-life bugs! They learned to use a dichotomous key and a pollution tolerance index to identify and group the different critters to determine the health of local waterways. It’s always a treat to show students the importance of water health and having fun while doing it.

Our January Teens in Thurston MLK Day of Service event took place at a local property owned by Dan Mazur, the founder of the Olympia Oyster Seed Planting Project. We were joined by Pacific Shellfish Institute and many volunteers to put together bags of Pacific oyster seed. Our volunteers managed to make 32 oyster bags with hundreds, if not thousands, of oyster seeds! These oysters will grow to provide food, habitat, and filtration services to the marine ecosystem to support the health of the water in Budd Inlet. A huge thank you to our volunteers and for the work that Dan and the Pacific Shellfish Institute put into making this even possible. If you or a high schooler you know is interested in outdoor and environmental volunteer work, please contact Sam Nadell at snadell@thurstoncd.com to join our email list.

Action Projects, Environmental Education, South Sound GREEN, Updates

Monthly Update – December 2025

Stephanie Bishop
Our Evergreen intern Tiana helping two students with planting.

We ushered in a chilly December with action projects and seed sorting!

Students from ORLA, Reeves Middle, and Marshall Middle joined us at a local farm and Squaxin Park to participate in habitat restoration. Students worked hard on helping support riparian zones by pulling invasive species and planting native shrubs. Students learned how to properly plant to ensure the best changes for these species and why it’s so important to fight against invasives. Some of these students have participated in water quality testing, leading to some great connections between riparian buffer zones and water quality. The cold was no problem for these conservationists!

This month TnT met at Haki Farmers Collective. Here we spent the rainy afternoon in the barn sorting sorghum seeds and beans as we learned how the plants are used. We even had some time to conduct some science experiments as we tried to pop the sorghum seeds like popcorn! If you have a teen interested in getting some outdoors working experience, contact Sam Nadell at snadell@thurstoncd.com.

We at South Sound GREEN are happy with the work we’ve been able to accomplish this year, and none of it would have been possible without the help of our teachers, volunteers, students, and community partners! We had over 8,000 student interactions this year and multiple new classes and schools participating in our programming for the first time. We have a lot of exciting education opportunities such as South Puget Sound Regional Envirothon and Student GREEN Congress coming up, so keep your eyes peeled for future updates. Here’s to another successful year in outdoor education!

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, Nearshore, South Sound GREEN, Uncategorized, Water Quality

How Many Seashells Does She Sell on the Seashore?

ssgreenamericorps

Nearshore 2018 Infograph_Short

Hopefully, for the ecosystem and the beach goers, none.
With the oceans becoming more acidic it is harder for shelled marine critters to build strong outer protection and secondary shellers (like hermit crab) are having trouble finding homes! Each item on the beach, whether it’s shells, crab molts, or rocks plays an important role in the beach’s local ecosystem.
And that is the main message being shared at the seashore during Nearshore Field Trips!


This spring South Sound GREEN hosted 770 students to participate in the Nearshore program. Students ranged between 5th to 8th grade, and came from 6 local schools. The Nearshore program is a field trip that South Sound GREEN offers as a way for students to connect their freshwater monitoring experience with the marine waters of Puget Sound.


For many kids this is the first time seeing some of the different marine species up close and in person, and gives students an introduction to marine biology. “I am thankful for this experience because I got to see new animals in a beautiful place” Aeivet, 5th grader. Through this hands-on program students learn about what affects marine water quality and how their freshwater monitoring site is connected to the Puget Sound. The students get to collect plankton samples, identify the plankton under microscopes, and use a Secchi disk to measure turbidity with Pacific Shellfish Institute. They also get an overview of scuba diving and interact with marine life brought up to the surface by the divers.


Students had the opportunity to explore the subtidal zone at Zittel’s Marina, and then then intertidal zone at Tolmie State Park and Johnson Point Beach. In this nearshore habitat they identified marine life with South Sound Estuary Association’s Beach Naturalists and discovered various adaptations that help the organisms to survive in the different habitat zones. During the programs, 255 volunteer hours were spent helping students to identify over 90 different marine species.


Julia from Lydia Hawk wrote “This was one of my favorite field trips in fifth grade! And thank you for letting our class experience this!” If each person that went to beach to experience the amazing marine ecosystem (like the 770 students in the Nearshore program) collected a souvenir, there would be very little for others to enjoy and even less left for marine critter’s to build their homes.

So remember the next time you’re on a vacation and want to take that beautiful cockle shell home, Life’s a Beach. Or rather Beach = Life.