Trash travels into art instead of the ocean!

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A very creative team of six students in Michelle Colbert’s art class at Clackamas High School created an educational art piece for our new SOLVE office.  Volunteers cleaned up litter from Phillips Creek, which runs by the Clackamas Town Center near the school.  Litter that is dropped nearby or blown out of overflowing trash cans washes into Phillips Creek during rain events and can be a real problem for wildlife that call the creek home.

From Change.org:

As we all know, every discarded item, no matter the size, must end up somewhere. Often litter ends up in waterways. With assistance from ditches, sewer systems, rivers and other bodies of water, litter can easily traverse across thousands of miles to wash up on your local beach.

Here are the top five litter items found and how they harm wildlife:

#5 Plastic beverage bottles (8.6 percent)
Plastic is lightweight and durable, making it an ideal choice for manufacturing. Put it in water and decomposition time slows down, meaning plastic will be around for a long time — about 450  years — potentially harming marine wildlife. BPA, a chemical compound in plastic bottles that’s linked to health problems in humans, can cause reproductive disorders in shellfish and other species.

#4 Caps and lids (8.9 percent)
Caps and lids are not too large for a number of wildlife species to eat. Birds, like albatross in Hawaii, mistake them for eggs or squid and take them back to the nest.

#3 Food wrappers/containers (9.2 percent)
Both paper and plastic are used in food packaging. They can be mistaken for food and any traces of food on the packaging will attract hungry animals. Choking or blockages can lead to death.

#2 Plastic Bags (11 percent)
Plastic bags may not seem appetizing, but a sea turtle can mistake them for jellyfish. Blockages can occur, causing the turtle to starve to death if they don’t choke first. Other possibilities include animals becoming trapped inside a bag and suffocating or drowning to death.

#1 Cigarettes/cigarette filters (21 percent)
As with land litter, cigarettes/cigarette filters are the most prevalent litter type in water. Not only does wildlife mistakenly eat discarded cigarette parts, they may also be fed to offspring. No nutritional value is obtained from cigarettes, yet wildlife feel full after ingestion. Cigarettes are also highly toxic — as Chris Santiago wrote on the Environment blog, the chemicals in one filtered cigarette butt can kill half the fish living in a one liter container of water.

SOLVE staff handed over 5 full litter bags to science teacher, Rod Shroufe who has been working with us on stream and wetland enhancement projects with his science classes for over a decade.  Rod got the art class connected to this project.  Students then came up with the concept completely on their own – four fish created from the trash.  We unveiled the artwork at our Open House last Thursday and attendees were amazed!  The artwork was the highlight of the event, inspiring many teachers who attended to do similar projects with their own students.

The work will also travel with SOLVE staff as we travel to tabling events, educating the public and volunteers about marine debris and litter in waterways.

THANK YOU Clackamas High School Art Department!

 

Timber Lake Job Corps Working Hard at Currin Once Again

 

Volunteers from Timber Lake Job Corps came out to Currin Creek in Estacata again this week to continue the amazing amount of work they’ve been doing on this site. Despite the dreary weather, quicksand-like muddy banks, and nasty invasive species, the students completed another great day of work.

Currin Creek is our infamous site in which we are essentially building up a riparian zone from scratch. This creek was rerouted through an open field for construction purposes, and therefore has no appropriate trees or shrubs growing near it. It is in dire need of this stable riparian plant community on its banks otherwise it faces a miserable future of extreme erosion, loading the stream with large quantities of sediment, warm water, and very little wildlife. In less than two hours the 11 Job Corps students planted nearly 200 plants along the banks of the stream. Then they put their energies toward digging up the roots of a particularly thick patch of blackberry brambles which they also accomplished in record time. They even had some time to spare to dig out some scotch broom that has been slowly creeping back on this site.

We love working the the Job Corps at this site, and really appreciate all of their hard work, stamina, and sense of humor at the site.

Rachel Carson Green Team: Planting, Plastics, and pH

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We had another great day this Wednesday with our Rachel Carson Environmental Middle School Green Team out at Willow Creek!

The students split up into three teams and each took turns completing different tasks around the site. One task was to plant trees and shrubs in an area that is primarily covered with the very invasive reed canary grass. They got a very impressive number of over 60 plants in the ground, many of which were in very sloppy and muddy soil that is very difficult to dig in. Another task was to do another test of the water quality of Willow Creek. Students have gotten so good at this that they all did it completely independently without any help from teachers! The third activity that students did was have a conversation about litter, where it goes when it washes downstream, and about how our society’s use of plastic products is affecting the planet, specifically our oceans. Students had a lot of questions, and we had some really good discussions. After the conversation, we had a short trash pick-up at the site and began preparing the litter for an art project. We are excited to see what comes of it!

We always love working with Rachel Carson students out at Willow Creek, their curiosity and insight for the work we are doing is really inspiring!

Gladstone High transforms trash into treasure

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Over the past month and a half three students from Gladstone High School’s art club have been hard at work transforming litter which was pulled out of a nearby stream into beautiful art work.

The SOLVE office recently moved from Hillsboro to Portland and we were in need of new artwork to grace our walls.  What better way to show off SOLVE’s mission than to re-purpose litter into artwork!  So we were off to clean up litter from Phillips Creek.  This stream flows beside the Clackamas Town Center and is surrounded by a sea of parking lots.  Litter that is dropped nearby or blown out of overflowing trash cans washes into Phillips Creek during rain events and can be a real problem for wildlife that call the creek home.

From the Surfrider Foundation:

Rain or overwatering flushes plastic litter through a storm drain system or directly to creeks, streams and rivers that lead to the ocean.  After plastics enter the marine environment they slowly photodegrade into smaller pieces that marine life can mistake for food, sometimes with fatal results.

We handed over five full bags of litter from the creek to art teachers, Brenden Thwing and Chris Rich at Gladstone High.  Students then came up with the concept completely on their own, SOLVE’s founder former Governor Tom McCall. Perfect!  The students did a fantastic job with creative representation in closing our garbage loop.

Thank you Gladstone High School!!

Maintaining McKay Creek

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Glencoe High School Green Team has removed about 3,000 pounds of Armenian Blackberry and planted 700 native trees and shrubs just this school year. The transformation of our site behind Glencoe High School has been one of astronomical measures. People walking the track from the community, students of Glencoe High School, and surely all of the wildlife a the site have taken an interest in the incredible work that has been accomplished.

Students made an effort to ensure our new plantings would survive by placing reused coffee bags made out of a natural grass called jute next to each tree or shrub. This will give our plants the head start they need to grow taller than any invasive species that may try to move in. Next, we poured buckets of mulch in a circle around our plants to help them retain moisture more effectively. Even though its hard to imagine dry, sunny days in the middle of this rainy week, they will come eventually. When they do, the mulch will keep the plant well hydrated.

We decided to take our Green Team activities inside for the end of the class period to do some reflecting on all of the work we have done. Students wrote about significant experiences they’ve had in nature through stories and poetry. Students have the opportunity to submit their work to an annual anthology entitled Honoring Our Rivers (http://www.honoringourriver.org/).

 

Announcing Women In Science Day 2012!

Hey girls! Interested in a career in science? Would you like to have the opportunity to talk to successful women in the field of science about their experiences and backgrounds? If so, then we are excited to announce an exciting upcoming event on March 10th: SOLVE‘s: Women In Science Day 2012, hosted by Pacific University!

During this event which includes free breakfast and lunch, you will have the opportunity to meet women from a wide spectrum of scientific fields and have a chat about pursuing a career in science. We will be having a continental breakfast meet and greet at Pacific University before heading out to Gale’s Creek in Forest Grove, one of SOLVE‘s restoration sites, to plant some trees and shrubs together.

Read on for the specifics:

Who: Girls ages 12 and up

When: Saturday March 10, 9:00 am -1:00 pm

Where & What to Expect:

• 9:00 am: Breakfast and Activity with Mentors
  • Location: Pacific University, Forest Grove (Milky Way Room of the Creamery Building)
  • Girls will see a brief presentation on careers in science and then have a chance to talk with mentors in a smaller group setting about their careers and how they got there. Breakfast will be donated by Pacific University.
• 11:00 am: Tree Planting
  • Location: Gales Creek, Forest Grove
  • After our morning activities, we will take a chartered bus to Gales Creek, one of our active restoration sites, to plant native trees and shrubs. Lunch will be provided at the end of the day, the bus will be back at Pacific University by 1pm.

What to bring: Please wear appropriate clothing and shoes to be outside planting trees. SOLVE will provide tools and food.

We look forward to another exciting Women In Science Day!

Go here to register. We only have room for 35 girls, so register soon! Contact Charlie Vogelheim at SOLVE for further information: (503) 844-9571 x329, charlie@solv.org

Reuniting and Reflecting at Council Creek

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Stewards of Council Creek under the roles of Roots & Shoots members and young conservationists extraodinaires, reunited together after a restful couple of winter months. Upon reuniting, students continued to maintain our plants by securing coffee bags on the earth next to them. When a few students new to Green Team came to join us, other Green Team students explained our restoration efforts articulately and thoroughly.

Students then wrote a few reflections on their work at Council Creek. Students thought about the sorts of things in nature they refuse to see our society destroy, their favorite times near rivers, and more.

To wrap things up, we did a quick litter clean-up of the site to try to bypass the trashes and plastics at Council Creek from going any further downstream.  Students continued working passionately throughout the entire activity to help save their watershed. We are looking forward to future endeavors in macroinvertebrate sampling and much more!