Written by Meghan Ballard, Green Team Program Coordinator.
Students from SOLVE’s Green Teams on the East Side of the Willamette River joined together last week to share their experiences and the lessons they have learned over the past year. Hosted at Clackamas High School, students were able to hear about each others’ research and time spent at the creek.
Matthew Collins, Education Director for Friends of Tryon Creek, joined us to talk about the importance of volunteering and how it has personally impacted his life and career choices. Check out all of the different ways you can volunteer with Friends of Tryon Creek!
Ashley, Lindsey, Joel and Tanner from Gladstone High School started off the student presentations with information about invasive species at Rinearson Creek. Sam and Katie joined us to represent West Linn High School and their work with stream bioengineering at Abernethy Creek. Portland Lutheran School students Lydia, Rachel, Abi and Arianna
shared their experience with the fun, slimy and smelly salmon toss on the Sandy River. Alexis, Ben, Jesse and Ryan presented on behalf of Clackamas High School and they shared some very interesting findings about their macroinvertebrate surveys of Mount Scott and Rock Creeks. Fernanda, Kennedy, and Jake from Rex Putnam High School put together a documentary of their work this year at Boardman Wetlands. And students from the Sabin-Schellenberg Technical School gave their perspective on several tools they’ve used this year on invasive removal at Rock Creek.
Charlie(SOLVE) also introduced something new this year, the Clackamas Student Stewardship Award! This award recognizes a special student or group of students who go above and beyond our usual tasks and contribute something extraordinary to SOLVE and the overall work we do as a Green Team program. This year’s award was given to three outstanding art students, Chanel Karbonski, Kristy Younglove, & Ashley-Jean Gonzalez who have done AMAZING work transforming litter pulled out of Phillips Creek into beautiful and educational artwork, including the Tom McCall portrait below!
THANK YOU to all of the stellar students and teachers we have had the honor and privilege of working with this year! It has been one of our most successful Green Team years ever and we are so glad you all were able to share it with us.
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
- Patrick Edwards, Portland State University
- Johnson Creek Watershed Council
- Friends of Trees
- Clackamas River Basin Council
- Friends of Tryon Creek
Amazing litter art!
SOLVE Green Team 
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