Grant gives Skykomish students inside look at salmon

Sound Salmon Solutions, a Regional Fisheries Enhancement Group based in Lake Stevens, is teaching the students of Skykomish School District about the environment and importance of salmon to the local area.

Sound Salmon Solutions is a nonprofit organization focused on preserving the declining salmon population in Washington and sharing its knowledge with others in an instructive and collaborative way.

"Education and public engagement are critical to salmon recovery,GÇ¥ said Sound Salmon Solutions executive director Rodney Pond. "The more people know, the more they care. The more they care, the more they will act to restore and preserve salmon habitat.GÇ¥

JoAnne Menard, planning director of the Skykomish Environmental Institute and project manager for the Maloney Creek Trail Project, played a key role in obtaining funds to bring Sound Salmon Solutions to Skykomish School.

For quite some time, Menard had been applying for grants on behalf of Maloney Creek without success through Snoqualmie Watershed Forum, a King County nonprofit organization that focuses on the preservation and restoration of water resources and habitat projects. Because the Maloney Creek Trail Project is a rather low-scale project, it is difficult to receive large grants.

Being a larger organization, Sound Salmon Solutions applied for and received a grant through Snoqualmie Watershed Forum. To help Sound Salmon Solutions, as well as find a way to serve the Maloney Creek Trail project, they came to an agreement to subcontract some of the funds to the Town of Skykomish to install interpretive signage on the Maloney Creek trail and, with the remaining funds, bring environmental education to the town's small school.

So far, Sound Salmon Solutions has visited Skykomish twice; the first visit consisted of a lab with an emphasis on erosion modeling. The students crafted model watersheds, went investigating the role trees play in slowing erosion. The second visit involved a salmon dissection; the students had the opportunity to dissect donated Chinook salmon carcasses. They explored and analyzed the inner workings of the fish that were brought directly from a salmon hatchery.

"The students have been learning a lot,GÇ¥ said Skykomish School District Superintendent Martin Schmidt. "The labs have been giving students additional opportunities for hands-on-learning. Our students really look forward to working with Sound Salmon Solutions.GÇ¥

There are plans for several more learning opportunities for the Skykomish students in the near future. The next lab will teach the students how to monitor water qualities, such as oxygen content and turbidity, as well as how to measure pollutants in the water. After this upcoming project, the Sound Salmon Solutions team plans to lead the students on a tree-planting excursion.

Kelley Govan, the education and engagement project coordinator for Sound Salmon Solutions, has led the environmental lab workshops for the fourth- to 12th-graders at Skykomish School.

"The plan, from the start, has been to come up every month or two for a year, where the underlying focus of each visit is water quality and salmon,GÇ¥ Govan said.-á With two visits down and two more forthcoming in the next few months, the projects will overlap into the 2016-17 school year. "After working with students in rural areas, I have noticed that they are typically more comfortable being outdoors and getting their hands dirty, in comparison to those in the more urban settings.GÇ¥

For some of the students in bigger cities, these projects are their first time to get their hands dirty and learn in nature.

"These young people are our planet's future,GÇ¥ Govan said. "It is so important for them to have informal environmental education opportunities such as theseGÇ¥.

Menard was able to attend and help out during the salmon dissection.

"It was awesome to get to see the students so engaged and interested,GÇ¥ Menard said. Skykomish High School student Kyrah Woodford has participated in both of the Sound Salmon Solutions projects.

"I'm very grateful for this opportunity,GÇ¥ she said, "because I know a lot of people in high school don't get this kind of experience. It's amazing to live in an environment where these kinds of things are possible.GÇ¥

Skykomish, Sultan, Monroe, Marysville, Darrington, Edmonds and Everett are just a handful of the school districts to which Sound Salmon Solutions has brought environmental education programs.

"We work extensively with schools throughout our watersheds, because young people are the ones to carry this work forward and will be the salmon stewards of the future,GÇ¥ Pond said.

Schools interested in incorporating the environmental education programs offered by Sound Salmon Solutions into their curriculum can visit www.soundsalmonsolutions.org.