Eastside 2013 Green Team Student Summit!

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The school year is winding down and the summer is rapidly approaching.  Green Team students took this opportunity to celebrate their efforts over the past year on their stream and wetland enhancement projects.  Eastside Green Team students gathered on May 17th at Rex Putnam High School for a day of celebration and sharing!

After an introduction from Kris, our Green Team Program Coordinator in lieu of Meghan Ballard on maternity leave, we kicked things off with our Keynote speaker! John Runyon is a Principle at his own environmental consulting firm, Cascade Environmental Group, overseeing watershed planning and restoration projects of all types. John shared his background experiences in fisheries, forestry, and stream restoration and encouraged us to continue to search for our passions!

Kris (SOLVE) welcomes everyone to the Student Summit

Keynote speaker, John Runyon, Cascade Environmental Group

Rex Putnam HS talks about their year in their Sustainable Systems class

Portland Lutheran school explains how they mapped Beaver Creek using GIS technology

Nicole (SOLVE) introduces Clackamas HS on stage

Clackamas HS talks about the importance of watersheds

Clackamas HS discusses their Salmon toss

Clackamas HS afterschool Green Team club talks about their activities throughout the year

The Watershed Avengers of Clackamas HS!

Spring Mountain Elementary kicked off the morning with a video of what they this year in their very first year with SOLVE.  This enthusiastic group of third, fourth, and fifth graders restored Mt. Scott Creek after school, all year-long.  Our next presenters were our hosts, Rex Putnam High School‘s Sustainable Systems class.  They presented a documentary of their work at Boardman Wetlands and in their class throughout the year.  Portland Lutheran School described how their class mapped Beaver creek using GIS technology.  Students took the TriMet bus to Beaver Creek 5 times this year and completed individual inquiry projects and stream restoration activities.  Rod and Angie Shroufe’s classes from Clackamas High School explained how they have kept Rock Creek healthy throughout the year and the reason for their November Salmon tosses.  Clackamas High School also has an after school Green Team that has worked at Rock Creek and Mt. Scott Creek this year.  They explained the various projects they have implemented throughout the year to make Clackamas High School green! Last but not least, we had the Watershed Avengers, in all of their glory, from Clackamas High School present a lighthearted video about the removal of invasive species and get a little jiggy with it.  WATCH IT HERE.

SOLVE also recognized Amanda from Clackamas High School as this year’s Student of the Year.  Amanda participated in the SOLVE Stream Team Captain 3 day training in June.  Since then, she has dedicated 10 Saturdays to leading SOLVE events, which is hard to imagine from a busy high-schooler!  She is a shining example of how SOLVE and other local organizations can help you learn new skills, try experiences, and explore natural resources as a possible career.

Our Student of the Year: Amanda!

A BIG thank you to our presenters, 12 Eastside Schools and 1120 students for your constant dedication and hard work to make our watersheds healthier for generations to come.  We are inspired by your passion and can’t wait to see all the things you will continue to do in the future.  This of course, also wouldn’t be possible without our Green Team Teachers who have motivated and encouraged their students throughout the year with their positive attitudes, rain or shine!  

Also thank you to the following sponsors, partners and friends who attended the summit and for supporting our work:

• Clackamas County Water Environment Services
• Clackamas Soil and Water Conservation District
• Oak Lodge Sanitary District
• East Multnomah Water and Soil Conservation District
• Boeing
• Patrick Edwards, Portland State University
• Johnson Creek Watershed Council
• The Rock Creek Partnership

A parting thought from a Gladstone High School student this year:

“A place so calm but corrupted

but people like us can fix it.

Each day we plant a new life

to help save the fish.

Pushing towards a new beginning I remind myself.

I am a student

I am an Oregonian

I am one of hundreds who’s willing to make a difference”

Thanks for playing in the mud, sun and hail with us, it has been a blast!

The superheroes of Mt. Scott Creek

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Written by SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest members Nicole Poletto and Lauren McKenna

Spring Mountain Elementary @ Mt. Scott Creek on 4.16.2013

As one of their last times to Mt. Scott Creek, the superheroes of Spring Mountain Elementary prepared to protect their newly planted native plants!

In order to do this, we needed to pull the invasive English Ivy creeping up the trees and into our plants.  We also needed to finish mulching our plants to make sure they aren’t thirsty during the hot summer.  Both tasks were very important jobs, and neither were taken lightly!  Students ripped ivy off of rocks, trees and the ground, determined to make sure it would not grow back while other students lovingly made mulch donuts around our Snowberries, Western Red Cedars, and Ninebarks.

Ivy? Not on our watch!

We also took the chance to reflect on the year for a community newsletter that will be distributed to the surrounding community!  Since we have been working so hard at Mt. Scott Creek, this is our chance to tell the world why it is important and why we love it so much!

Here are a few of the reflections from the day:

Thank you Spring Mountain Green Team, for coming to the rescue and saving Mt. Scott Creek!

Litter isn’t cool…but litter ART is!

Written by SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest Americorps members Nicole Poletto and Lauren McKenna

Litter isn’t always this scenic!

The trash that litters Phillips Creek

Trash along our roadways eventually makes its way into our streams and into the ocean!

Clackamas Middle College @ Phillips Creek on 4.11.2013

On their monthly outings, Clackamas Middle College couldn’t help but notice all of the trash that continually littered Phillips Creek.  On one sunny day, they dedicated the entire day to a litter clean up and collected 500 pounds of trash!  We washed off some of the trash that we found and turned it into art!

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The students made 3 distinct works of art made from the litter they found at the creek behind their school.

- “Aquatic trash; Trash isn’t always this scenic!” An aquatic scene made out of items such as Christmas tree lights, Solo cups, styrofoam, and food wrappers.

- “Ode to Litter: not a black and white issue” – An assortment of litter found in the creek such as sandals, straws, food wrappers, energy drinks, lighters, and toys to discourage littering!

- “The Path of Trash” – This board depicts a trash along a highway that has washed into the creek, demonstrating that litter in our watershed can make its way out to the ocean!  It was made with fire truck and motorcycle toys found at the creek, plastic bottles, cans, and wrappers!

These works of art can now be used to educate the community about why it is important to reduce our use of plastics! They can help build awareness that some of our waste and litter ends up in our creeks, rivers and eventually makes its way out to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the middle of the ocean.  Who knew our trash could have such a powerful message?!

We not only made beautiful masterpieces that day, we also reflected on the year as a whole and wrote articles about Phillips creek.  These articles will be featured in a newsletter distributed to the community to explain why we steward Phillips Creek and all the hard work we have been doing there.  Our native plants also needed our help to battle invasive Reed Canary grass that was beginning to shade them out!  So we cut the grass away from the natives and mulched 50 plants to help suppress the grass, add more nutrients to the soil, and help our native plants retain water.  That way they can grow big and strong and defeat their invasive enemy.

Thank you Clackamas Middle College for your dedication to creating awareness and making Phillips Creek healthier for generations to come.

Final reflections on Rock Creek

Written by SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest member, Nicole Poletto

Clackamas HS on 4.5.2013

For 2 classes at Clackamas High School today was their last SOLVE day.  These students came out to Rock Creek, once a month, rain or shine.  The students worked very hard this year, transforming a hillside of blackberry into a sea of native plants, creating and installing live cottonwood stakes, doing a litter clean-up and investigating stream health through macroinvertebrate surveys.  (Phew, that is a lot!)  Now the time had come to look back on everything that we had learned.  We only held back tears long enough to write some reflections: articles, poems, and drawings about the year…

Here is what some of the students had to say:

Roses are red, violets are blue

I like the forest, I hope you do too.

And if by chance you disagree

well you’re wrong, save the trees!

Aside from trees, the river’s great

the fish swim freely it helps them mate.

Native plants can still be saved

it’s our job to keep the invasives away.

                                                                       The watershed is our backyard

                                                                    so keep it clean, it’s not that hard!

Rock Creek is where we restore,

if we don’t work, invasive species grow more and more.

Our goal is to save the creek,

we work with SOLVE, they are pretty unique.

Invasive species grow free

Taking over all the trees

we have to save Rock Creek.

Litter removal is key

Now there is peace

We have to save Rock Creek

Native plants means going green

Big and tall for all to see

We have to save Rock Creek

Slow water, thick roots,

shaded banks, cool water, animals free

We have saved Rock Creek

There were so many awesome reflections it was hard to choose just a few.  Keep an eye out for more in the Rock Creek Newsletter coming soon!

In the beginning of the year the students took a SOLVE Pre-Test and today it came full circle when they took a Post-test to see how much they learned.  Here are the results:

Pre test average: 4.8 out of 19.

Post test average: 10.2 out of 19.

Thank you Clackamas High School, your passion inspires us and thanks to you, Rock Creek will be healthier for generations to come!

Hay, lets mulch Rock Creek

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Written by SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest member, Nicole Poletto

Clackamas High School @ Rock Creek on 3.15 and 3.18.2013

Clackamas students returned to Rock Creek to take in all their work over the past couple of months.  The hillside prone to landslides was planted with 600 native plants, staked with Cottonwood and Willow, and was seemingly Blackberry free!  Now, the next important step was to take care of all the baby natives that we just planted!

For the next two days, the students mulched with hay and straw, making tight “nests” around the plants, just like “momma” birds!  These nests will help the plants retain water, nutrients, and suppress weeds!  Mulching all 600 of our plants was no easy task, but we did it!  Once all of our nests were made we spread the straw over the exposed soil on the hillside to help keep loose dirt from sliding away.  We used 12 bales of straw and 4 huge bales of hay!

That is not even all that we did!  We also caged our baby plants from beavers.  This helps protect them from beavers until they are mature enough to live in harmony with our state animal!  This is especially important at Rock Creek because we found tons of signs of beaver activity over the past 2 months.  We made 100 cages and put them around our baby Alders and Willows (beaver delicacies). We even saw some rough skinned newts and learned about native stinging nettle! Yes, you CAN eat it (the nettle, not the newt) but only after cooking it!

At the end of the day we could step back and be proud of our progress.  Our natives are well on their way to holding the bankside in place and outcompeting Blackberry thanks to Clackamas students!

A thriving creek!

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Written by SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest member Nicole Poletto

La Salle HS @ Phillips Creek on 3.13 and 3.14.2013

It was La Salle’s first trip out in 2013 and excitement was in the air as students returned to the site and saw all of their progress from the past few months.  We like to plant plants in the rainy winter season when all of the energy of the plant is devoted toward growing roots rather than leaves and branches.  Now that it seemed spring had sprung, we needed to get the plants in the ground! The first class of students focused on planting the rest of the native plants at the site.

However, it is not enough to plant our natives and call it a day!  We need to take care of our baby natives in order to make sure that they survive, which is why we mulch them!  Mulch helps the plant retain water in the warm summer months with the students wont be there, it helps the plant retain nutrients, and it also helps suppress weeds around the plants.

We had a mulch assembly line making donuts around the baby natives which quickly made it clear to see all of the progress we had made.

After all 5 classes we planted 95 plants, mulched 600 plants with an entire unit of mulch, AND did a litter cleanup!

Unfortunately, Phillips Creek is often filled with litter – but not today!  The students collected the trash from the riparian zone to keep out from eventually making its way to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  We found cool items like parts of vending machines, salmon mugs, shopping carts, and even a TV!

Thanks to La Salle, our plants are ready to complete with Blackberry and Phillips Creek is ready to thrive!

Blackberry doesn’t stand a chance…

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Written by SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest member Nicole Poletto

Sabin-Schellenberg @ Rock Creek on 3.12.2013

One sunny Tuesday morning, Forestry I hopped off the bus at Rock Creek for their first SOLVE trip!  Armed with shovels, the students were ready to take on invasives.  The Armenian Blackberry never even stood a chance!  They learned that we remove invasive species to help prevent erosion (especially on the steep banks at Rock Creek) because invasive species have simpler root structures in a monoculture that do not hold onto the soil.  We also remove invasive species to plant native species in order provide habitat and food for native animals as well as shade for the creek!

The students quickly got to work digging out roots, and as the class period continued, the pile continued to grow!  At the end of the class, the students teamed up and planted some Cascara trees and Red Currant – 25 to be exact!  With all of the Blackberry cleared, Rock Creek will soon become a native vegetation haven!

Keep up the good work Sabin!

Our coasts unite to make Boardman Wetlands a better place

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Written by SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest member, Nicole Poletto

Rex Putnam HS with the University of Tampa @ Boardman Wetlands on 3.11.2013

Hailing from “the sunshine state”, the University of Tampa (YES! Tampa, Florida!) brought sunshine and good spirits as they came all the way from the opposite corner of the country to volunteer with SOLVE during their spring break.

They kicked off the week at Boardman wetlands to learn why SOLVE restores riparian zones and why our Green Teams do what they do!  Boardman Wetlands is plagued with invasive Reed Canary grass and Armenian Blackberry.  Due to the complex seed bank, the only way to get rid of Reed Canary grass is with shade.  Luckily, Rex Putnam students have been planting in the grass for the past two years and our natives are competing for space.  Armenian blackberry however, has a gnarly root structure that can be dug out!  Our spring breakers got to work removing invasive Blackberry to clear more area to plant our native trees and shrubs!  After a quick lunch break, the University of Tampa students planted 40 Ponderosa Pines, Cascara, and native roses!

Then it was time for a MULCH PARTY with Rex Putnam High School!  Terri and Katie from Oak Lodge Sanitary district also joined in the fun.  We had a whole mulch pile to move and our coasts united to get the job done!

Working together to make a difference at Boardman Wetlands!

We mulch our baby natives to help suppress weeds that might grow up around the plant, provide extra nutrients, and help the plant retain water (especially during the warm summer months when Rex Putnam isn’t out to take care of them!).  After we mulched all the plants in the Blackberry area, Putnam students began an assembly line to help our plants in the Reed Canary grass.  At the end of the day, we mulched 300 native plants!

As Dr. Seuss says,

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

– The Lorax

We are so lucky to have so many people who care about the health of our watershed united at Boardman Wetlands to make Oregon a better place.  Thank you Rex Putnam, Oak Lodge Sanitary District, Clackamas County Water Environmental Services, and of course, the University of Tampa!

Our University of Tampa spring breakers!  Thank you for your commitment, great attitude, and hard work!

Macro-fun!

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Text and photos by SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest members, Nicole Poletto and Lauren McKenna

Clackamas Middle College @ Phillip Creek on 3.7.2013

A bright sunny day is the perfect setting for sampling for macroinvertebrates!   A macroinvertebrate survey is one way that we can assess the health of the stream.  But wait, why wouldn’t we just stick a probe in the stream and measure the temperature, dissolved oxygen, etc?  That is because the water quality of the stream only at one point in time doesn’t tell us that much about the health of the stream as a whole.  It is a mere snapshot of stream health.  Therefore we pulled on some waders and hopped in the stream to collect macros!  Macroinvertebrates have relatively long lifespans and don’t migrate – the more diverse the macros found are, the healthier the stream is!

Since 4 classes came out to Phillips creek to assess the health, we divided the creek into 4 sections and moved upstream with each class so that we could get a full picture of Phillips creek’s health.  Students hopped in the stream and took 3 kicks with their D-nets in order to see what was living in the stream!  We found a lot of mayflies (such as small minnow mayflies), scuds, and aquatic worms, not to mention a few crayfish spottings!  Overall, the species that we found are relatively tolerant of pollution.  That means Phillips creek is not as healthy as it could be, and that is why Clackamas Middle College is devoted to improving stream health!  Thank you for all of your hard work!

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SOLVE’s Annual Women in Science day will be held at Glen Otto Park in Troutdale on March 23^rd from 9-1.  Girls – Are you interested in exploring a career in science? Come chat with mentors currently in the science field over breakfast!  In the afternoon we will be planting trees up the road at Beaver Creek!  Register online at : http://www.solv.org/get-involved/events/women-science-day.  See you there!

Planting with a purpose

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Written by SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest member Nicole Poletto

Sabin-Schellenberg School @ Rock Creek Clackamas Confluence on 3.5.2013

It was the third and final trip out to Rock Creek for Sabin’s Advanced Forestry class.  By now they were planting professionals, so it was a breeze for these students to carry the plants to the site and get them in the ground.

Once 55 Oregon Grape, Snowberry, Red Currant, and Bigleaf Maples were planted, the students moved on to invasive removal!  The hillside was plagued with pesky Reed Canary grass, Thistle, and Scotch Broom.  However, since you cannot remove Reed Canary with tools, we focused our attention on ripping out the roots of Thistle and Scotch Broom to ensure they wouldn’t choke out our baby natives!

After some fun in the mud and rain it was time to call it a day.  We will miss you Sabin! Thanks so much for your hard work and great attitude!