Time to Celebrate: West Side Student Summit

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The hard work is over and now it is time to celebrate. Students part of SOLVE’s Green Team Program on the West Side of the Willamette have been working tirelessly all year- learning about riparian ecology and doing active stream restoration. They have spent many days in pouring rain, thick mud, and weaving through thorny blackberry to improve the health of their watersheds. Now, it was time to share our findings and accomplishments with one another, our funders, scientists in the field, and the entire community.

Students arrived in clothes very different from the usual muddy rain gear we are familiar with and we began listening to Meghan (SOLVE) welcome us to the event and thank us all for our hard work. Next, Sarah Pinnock, Wetlands Education Specialist at Jackson Bottom Wetlands Preserve, gave our keynote speech. She has a degree in Environmental Science from Marylhurst University.  She has been an educator and naturalist in the Northwest for 25 years, and has been a Wetlands Education Specialist at Jackson Bottom Wetlands Preserve for almost 13 years. Sarah designs and delivers field science programs and traveling programs for schools and groups, summer camps, adult and family programs. She encouraged us to look for the thing we love doing and to never be afraid to pursue it. It was so great to hear her inspirational words of wisdom!

Next, students presented on topics of their choice from their year working with SOLVE. We heard about everything from how plants sequester carbon to how macroinvertebrates tell us about the quality of the water in our streams. We heard about the incredible amount of work students have done to remove blackberry, ivy, morning glory, Reed canary grass, and to plant native trees and shrubs and take care of them. As a whole, Green Teams on the West Side have planted 2,800 trees and shrubs this school year.

Then we headed out to the lobby to hear about summer internship opportunities and admire all of the incredible garbage art and writing reflections of fellow Green Team students.

Together, as Green Team students in the Portland-Metro area you all have demonstrated that the power of young, informed, and devoted students is unstoppable. Your willingness to learn about the rivers in your backyard and turn that information into positive change is absolutely unbelievable. This positive energy and eagerness to make a difference will truly make this world a better place- in honesty, it already has.

Thank you all so much for being a part of Green Team this year. Congratulations to all of you dedicated stewards of your streams!

Angiosperm Intervention: Turning Knowledge into Responsibility

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Written by SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest Member, Gina Graziano

Valley Catholic High School had been learning about plants and the way they are classified and divided in the classroom. They heard about seed dispersal, the various ways plants produce seeds, and how plants differ from each other. Then, they walked back to Johnson Creek to apply that information to work that would make a huge difference. These students have been constantly using information they learn in the classroom to further understand the concepts and use their knowledge for good out at Johnson Creek this year. We at Valley Catholic believe Spiderman may have been right- with great knowledge comes great responsibility.

And taking responsibility for the health of Johnson Creek is something VCHS students are not afraid to do! We played a guessing game where I described a plant as something that has leaves that are palmately compound, with 5 leaflets, big thorns, produces a flower and a berry.. and before I could say anymore students guessed it! Perhaps you blog readers have guessed it by now too! Yep, Armenian Blackberry. Students said it was an angiosperm and it disperses its seeds through delicious, attractive berries. Animals will eat these berries, defecate them, and the seeds will grow into new plants. While this is a very wonderful, efficient way of dispersing seeds for our native angiosperms, we would rather these Armenian Blackberries not spread all over our site.

We reviewed that these berries will not form until later in the summer and realized our time was very precious! After this realization, we put on some gloves, grabbed a tool, and destroyed the angiosperm known as Armenian/ Himalayan blackberry as fast as possible. We found vines entangled over 15 feet high in Douglas Fir trees, wrapped around native Red Twig Dogwoods, Cottonwoods, and Snow berries. We cut them down and dug them out.

Thank you, Valley Catholic High School, for not just coming out to do the work and heading back into the classroom- but for really caring about the science behind the issues, understanding the problem, and using your knowledge to take responsibility for the health of your watershed. The world will be a better place with your devotion of turning information into positive change and we at SOLVE are so glad to have been witness to that.

Taking a Dip in Johnson Creek

By SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest Member, Charlie

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‘Tis the season for macroinvertebrate surveying in the SOLVE Green Team scene and the students at Valley Catholic High School were the most recent to jump on this buggy bandwagon when they sampled Johnson Creek on Wednesday.

For those of you who aren’t avid Green Team Blog followers and this is your first post you’ve read on macroinvertebrate sampling, here is a brief crash course: Macroinvertibrates (or as we call them, “macros”) are basically bugs (truly, anything without a backbone, which is what “invertebrate” means) that you can see with your naked eye (more or less what “macro” means). Surveying the macros in our streams can give us a pretty holistic indication of how healthy our stream is. Temperature and chemical tests might also give us a good idea of health, but these things often fluctuate over the course of the day and the macros living in the stream itself have to deal with these fluctuations. Therefore taking a look at who is living in the stream along with the knowledge of who is pollution tolerant and pollution sensitive can paint a clearer picture of stream health, and can give an idea of how well our restoration efforts are affecting the aquatic community.

The Method: Students sampled by swishing their nets in and around the vegetation growing on the sides of the bank, dislodging anything that might be crawling on the grass and reeds. Since Johnson Creek is very marshy and slow-moving, like many of the other streams in the Tualitin River Valley, we were unable to take samples from the bottom of the stream, this also had to do with the depth and muddiness of the creekbed. Students did, however, have no reservations about getting in the creek (sometimes past their waders…) to get great samples.

Okay, with that out of the way, let’s get to the exciting part: what did we find??? Insect-wise, students found a lot of damselfly larvae wiggling at the bottom of their samples. Also a lot of aquatic diving beetles were found swimming around the sample tray, and midge larvae twitching around the water. All of these are generally in fairly slow-moving stream environments (like Johnson Creek). Students also found several case-making caddisfly larvae with cases constructed out of sticks and blades of grass. These were exciting to find as these insects are pretty pollution sensitive. However students also found a lot of aquatic worms, snails, and a few leeches which are very pollution tolerant groups of invertebrates. Some other cool finds included a dragonfly larva, a couple of crayfish, and some students found a large gelatinous egg-mass belonging to Northwestern Salamanders! Thank you, amphibian expert, Kris Taylor, for identifying the egg mass!

It’s difficult to make any conclusive statements about the health of the stream from this one survey since this is the first survey at the stream and we don’t know what the invertebrate populations of the stream was historically. However the pollution sensitive caddisfly were exciting to see and might indicate that the stream is not completely degraded, but at the same time we did find a lot of pollution tolerant macros. We will save this data and in future years will use it to compare to future surveys of the stream to see how well Valley Catholic’s restoration efforts of Johnson Creek are improving the quality of the watershed and the health of the stream.

Thank you, Clean Water Services, for funding this project!

New Additions to an “Old” Area

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Written by SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest Member, Gina Graziano

AP Environmental Science at Valley Caholic, being the incredible class that it is, and having the leadership of Ms. Cole, our wonderful former SOLVE employee and Green Team leader extraoridnaire, can’t just stick to one section of the site when doing restoration work! They have done such a masterful job taking care of the forested area near Johnson Creek that they were ready and eager to check up on the area of the site VCHS students worked on in past years.

We talked about the urban gardening philosophy, that just like you can’t just plant a tomato plant and expect it to be ready to eat 50 days later with no visits inbetween to prune, weed, etc., you can’t just plant native trees and shrubs in a wetland and expect them to survive without a little help along the way.

Students recovered some pre-made cages in the grass, dug them up (which was no easy feat), and put them together while other students built some cages from scratch. While beaver are a native animal and we are happy they live in Johnson Creek, we need to protect our trees and shrubs while they are saplings so they can be snacks for beavers when they are mature and can handle being chewed on.

We caged Alder, Oregon Ash, Elderberry, and more to cage. And just like that class was over and we headed in! Students even started carrying all of our tools back to the truck before SOLVE staff had to ask for help!

Thank you, VCHS, for all of the spectacular work you do for Johnson Creek, and increibly helpful attitudes every time you come out.

Thank you, Clean Water Services, for funding this project.

Opposite Day at Valley Catholic High School

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The day was anything but ordinary out at Johnson Creek. When we arrived, Ms. Cole spotted a Snowy Egret on the water! Snowy Egrets (Egretta thula) are a type of native heron which are somewhat rare and sensitve to pollution so it was very exciting to see one at our site!

Next, we learned about the types of plants we were going to be planting. They both have oppositely arranged leaves/ buds. We planted Oregon Ash (Fraxinus latifolia) and Elderberry (Sambucus). We took our oppositely arranged plants and headed for the opposite site of our site, near where the Green Team at Valley Catholic all began about 10 years ago! We passed by mature Douglas Fir trees that were planted by students 8-10 years ago. It was exciting to see that the work of students in the Green Team really makes a difference. We ducked and dodged under and over Armenian Blackberry to get our opposite plants in the ground.

The one thing that was not opposite from normal happenings at Johnson Creek was Valley Catholic students’ positive attitudes, dedicated work, and fun and lively energy. Thanks for a great day!

Thank you to Clean Water Services for funding this project!

 

Restoring Watersheds Around the World

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Its inspiring enough to see students stewarding the stream behind their school, taking care of their own watershed, but to see students team up with more students from half way across the world, to share that challenge and hope is a whole other story. Valley Catholic High School students and Korean Exchange students through Marylhurst University worked to plant around 200 native trees and shrubs along Johnson Creek. VCHS students told the Korean Exchange students about the project and their commitment. We shared how we have been restoring Johnson Creek for ten years, removing invasive species like Armenain Blackberry, planting native trees and shrubs to stablize our stream bank, grow tall to shade the creek to create a cooler and more oxygen-rich stream, and much more. Valley Catholic High School students paired up with the Korean Exchange Students to plant native roses, Nine Bark, Oregon Ash, Ocean Spray, Oregon Grape, and more. Korean Exchange Students had a chance to practice their English language skills and hear about the High School experience in the United States. All in all, it was an inspirationally international day at Johnson Creek!

Valley Catholic Brings Some Holiday Cheer to Johnson Creek

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Valley Catholic came out ready and eager to plant trees and shrubs one last time before break.  They brought tons of energy and enthusiasm to the site despite the fact that this was there last day of school before Winter Break.

We even had a student volunteer to do the planting demonstration.  The students vividly remembered taking off all of the nursery soil, digging a basketball sized hole and filling the hole in completely once the roots were covered and the plants was ready to live in its new home.

Students planted vine maple, dogwood, ninebark, roses, and thimbleberry all in their short time out at Johnson Creek!

Way to go, Valley Catholic!! Happy, happy holidays!

Valley Catholic plants some holiday cheer!

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Students from Erin Cole’s Environmental Science class at Valley Catholic became well-aquainted with a few of Green Team staff’s best friends… our state tree Douglas Fir and Grand Fir!  Students were planting these species in an area that was once dominated by Armenian Blackberry.  These newly planted native trees (in addition to the other natives we will plant later) will provide better shade, root structure, pollution filtration and habitat than the invasive blackberry ever could.  These students have really begun to transform the forest this year!

Pseudotsuga menziesii (aka Doug Fir) and Abies grandis (aka Grand Fir) are common trees to Pacific Northwest Forests and they are also well-known common Christmas trees.  One thing you can do to make this holiday season even greener?  Buy a living Christmas tree from Bosky Dell Native Plant Nursery!  After the holiday season is over your tree can live on in a forest near you!

Living Christmas Tree!

 

Valley Catholic: Blackberry Removal All-Stars & Amphibian Enthusiasts

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Valley Catholic High School completely transformed our Johnson Creek site yesterday.  At 8:45am, the site was covered in blackberry.  Blackberry stems were intertwined, covering snowberry, and deeply rooted into the soil.  After the first class, a few snow berries were newly exposed and we could begin to see the origins of each blackberry stem.

Freshmen in Ms. Lacks’ Biology classes continued to cut down and dig out blackberry.  By the time Ms. Cole’s Biology and Environmental Science classes came out after lunch, the site was already looking quite different.  These last two classes helped to make sure all the roots along the path were dug up.  Our soil is just about ready to plant some awesome native trees and shrubs that will stabilize our banks, filter toxins from the school and nearby houses, and shade out invasive species from taking over.  Not to mention, we also built quite an impressive pile of dead blackberry roots, illustrating the extent of the students’ work.

Some adorable Amphibian friends even came out to check out our fantastic work.  Students got to see and hold a couple of Rough Skinned Newts and Ensatina Salamanders living in our nutrient rich soil.  After determining these were quite possibly the cutest Amphibian friends we’ve ever made, we put them in a safe spot out of the way of our restoration.

All in all, students had a very successful day out at Johnson Creek.  Thanks so much for all of your hard work!  Day 1 of restoring Johnson Creek: accomplished.

Here’s to a successful school year!

Thank you Green Team students, teachers, sponsors and supporters for successful year!