Education Update… Summer 2021
Ryan Kincaid
As Spring Turns to Summer…
The past few
months saw several education and outreach activities from Umpqua Watersheds. Our training for local educators – “Learning
in the Umpqua Watershed” invited twelve teachers from Douglas County for a full day of workshops designed to help them incorporate more nature, environmental awareness, STEAM, and creative problem solving with their students. Since that event, we have created an Educator Resources page on our website and helped to brainstorm activity ideas with the teachers.
During our River Clean Up in April, over thirty people came together to clean our local waterways. Groups went to ten different sites within the watershed, where they picked up litter and conducted water quality analyses. This served as the kickoff for our River Monitoring program, a citizen science initiative designed to engage youths and families in understanding impacts on water quality data collection. You can get involved with this
project by emailing the AmeriCorps member serving as our Environmental Education & Outreach Leader (Ryan) at ryan@umpquawatershed
s.org.
Our first Eco Innovations Challenge was also a success!
Two youths and two adults presented information about environmentally related issues of concern along with proposals of possible solutions. Two of these projects are taking place over the next couple of months; Rachael Brock (adult) is enlisting youths and adults to aid in the conducting of a bee survey June 12th and13th, with a follow-up survey later this summer. Emily Cannon (youth) developed a summer program called Kids for Nature, which will take place Mondays and Tuesdays for three weeks starting July 12th. The program is open to youths ages 9-12, and activities will include hiking, environmental conservation activities, and nature art.
July 23rd-25th, Umpqua Watersheds will host its annual Twin Lakes Wilderness Campout. We are excited to be able to offer this in-person event, especially since we weren’t able to last year. Space will be limited, so if you and your child are interested, please sign up as soon as possible. Send an email to ryan@umpquawatersheds.org to register for this memorable event!
