By Nathan Zabel
NSEA Education Program Manager

Each school year, NSEA’s Students for Salmon Program serves over 1,000 fourth graders throughout Whatcom County. This school year was particularly rewarding because it was our first time educating students in-person through this program in a over a year. The students are now on their summer break, but we look back on a school year that brought students back outside along salmon-bearing creeks just minutes away from their schools.

This year, NSEA’s AmeriCorps Environmental Education Coordinators Grace and Chloe went into 81 classrooms at 32 schools to introduce students to salmon, their lifecycle, and threats they face in our region. They then met those students outdoors on a field trip where students became “salmon scientists” and studied a local creek to determine how healthy it is for salmon. Students took action to help salmon on their field trips by participating in a stewardship project, and those collective actions resulted in 158 trees being planted and 5,660 pounds of invasive vegetation being removed. Because of these collective actions, 14 local waterways are left with habitat that will better support salmon.

NSEA values the importance of hope and the role it plays in educating the future generation to understand and care about salmon, salmon habitat, and stewardship. Students left with a better understanding of how salmon are important in our region, and how actions they take in their everyday lives can help ensure they continue to see salmon in the creeks they studied and restored for years to come. As one teacher said, “I have been working with NSEA for 19 years and to see the health of our local watersheds improving gives hope to the entire community and to the students that will make up this community's future citizens.” We are grateful to the teachers who continue to choose to enroll in Students for Salmon and appreciate their commitment to ensure their students continue to have lasting connections to their watershed.

For more information about NSEA’s Education programs, please contact Nathan Zabel at nzabel@n-sea.org or call 360-312-3094.