Learning and working with the NSEA staff made me connect to the natural world further

By Brant Hylinski
Environmental Education Intern
October 2018 to June 2019
30 for Thirty #6

A friend of a friend told me about an Environmental Education position in Bellingham, WA and I jumped on the opportunity. I was looking to get my foot in the door with Environmental Ed. to be a better candidate for Graduate School at WWU. I had recently transitioned careers from teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) in South Korea. I have been drawn to the PNW since my youth in that it was the complete opposite of my coastal plain, agrarian, and tidal marsh home of Delaware. Plus, as an aspiring centerfielder growing up in the 90’s there was no better swing or athlete in baseball than Ken Griffey Jr. I also was/am a huge Oregon Ducks fan, weird I know. So, I drove across the county to accept the position with much excitement and novelty. NSEA’s work does matter to me, and maybe I cannot quantify its true value but the meaning to the community that supports NSEA’s education, restoration, and stewardship initiatives is honestly more important than my anecdotal story. Learning and working with the NSEA staff made me connect to the natural world further. It made me be more of an active citizen. It made me learn more, look deeper, feel deeper, and find that excitement the natural world brings that my worldly travels had exposed to me that I was missing. It was always there but I needed to rediscover it. NSEA reaches so many people, especially the youth in Whatcom county, that being a small part of this NSEA family was a true honor. The work NSEA does is truly significant, educating and helping others, and more importantly working to conserve such amazing creatures so they can survive and thrive.

I have so many memories from the community work parties, finding earthworms with little kids to planting native plants and maybe eating too much pizza, teaching on field trips during those cold rain-soaked mornings that are hard to feel your fingers after a long day, to teaching at Birch Bay with gorgeous sun-soaked views of the mountains in British Columbia. Being able to see the kids eyes light up with excitement when examining macroinvertebrates or removing so many blackberry briars at the local parks around Bellingham was a really awesome thing to experience as an educator and I could not have done so otherwise without NSEA. Once you can get students really excited about the natural world, they will be hooked for life, pun intended! Putting in the work and with the support of NSEA, I was able to lead all stages of the Students for Salmon program from the intro presentations, field trips, and the conclusionary presentations. I gained such valuable teaching experiences and learned so much from everything that NSEA does. It really helped me be a better human and more cognizant of how our individual actions effect the natural world.

Being a part of NSEA helped me gain admittance into my current master’s program of Outdoor/Environmental Education CO-OP K-8 Teaching Certificate at Alaska Pacific University. My first semester I taught salmon ecology to our project-based learning group of 8-9 year old students at the Kellogg Field School located in Palmer, AK. We had a blast learning all about salmon. We even went on a field trip to a local creek and worked with a fish biologist that had been tracking Coho and King for over three years after a restoration effort of re-meandering a salmon creek by the local Chickaloon tribe and Alaska Department of Fish and Game. We observed a few stages of Coho and King life cycle with spawners and fry all within the same creek. We also made an amazing salmon mural, with the help of an indigenous artist, to forever honor the five species of Pacific salmon along with the local Athabascan dialect of Ahtna inscribed on the ribbons underneath the fish. I have been blessed with the opportunity to have gone dip-netting in the Kalisof River on the Kenai Peninsula and learned how to properly gut, skin, and fillet salmon with an Ulu (indigenous knife). This upcoming summer I won the lottery for the McNeil River Sanctuary to observe the largest congregation of brown bears feasting on the most delicious wild run salmon in the world. Before my student teaching in the fall of 2021, I will be leading high school youths in Anchorage at local parks on restoration and environmental education projects injecting them with all the positivity and energy of those NSEA work parties. All this would not have been possible without the opportunities and help from the staff at NSEA. I hope to continue to lead my life in a positive manner and help others find their enthusiasm for the natural world while protecting its most precious gifts.

For me, NSEA has become a story about worms

By Michelle Smith
NSEA Board Member, Volunteer, Community Partner Representative
30 for Thirty #5

I’ve never been squeamish about worms.  I grew up fishing in Oregon with a dad and brother that insisted I dig my own worms and put their wriggly little bodies on the hook if I wanted to fish with them.  And so worms are a badge of both independence and belonging for me.

I took my grandson, Tyler, to his first NSEA work party when he was 3.  He wore rain boots and tromped through grass taller than he was, his little legs tired but keeping up with the rest of the volunteers.  We arrived at our tree planting spot and began digging holes in rich soil beside the water.  The planting of a tree held little intrigue, but the worms in the hole, oh the worms!  We carefully fished out these natural composters, each newly found one a victory that we showed to nearby volunteers, who were now friends if they showed similar enthusiasm.  Surrounded by this community who had come together to plant trees and save salmon, he had found a new and important reason for all of us to be there together: worms.  He raced up and down the river bank among the tree planting crews, showing off each find. His smile and wonder fostered more smiles and renewed energies to dig more holes and plant more trees. This became his gift to the team.

NSEA is an absolute investment in the future of salmon, the future of healthy ecosystems, and even the future of the planet.  Clearly this investment manifests itself in the direct and tangible work performed to restore streams.  But for me the most important outcome of so much of NSEA’s work is the promis of the future that happens with NSEA’s commitment to the community.  My daughters came home from elementary school with stories of salmon lessons linking nature, science, salmon, art.  Every year, NSEA educates hundreds of youth about salmon’s important role in the ecosystem, empowering them with scientific knowledge and curiosity.  Every year, NSEA creates opportunity for our community to come together, young and old, to rebuild our planet.  With the sense of despair we might feel over the future of the planet, NSEA brings us a tangible reason for hope.

This community is a critical component of our success and has brought us to a position of gratitude, empowering us for 30 years to make a difference.  Whether giving time or giving money, the NSEA community is the power behind our strategy to achieve a better future.  The UN has declared this the decade of action for environmental restoration, and now is the time to invest in salmon, restoration, education, and the youth to make differences that matter.

There is a phenomenon of the past we don’t see enough of anymore, where groups of people come together freely giving their time to be a part of something that matters, today and for the future.  Since that first party, Tyler has participated in many more NSEA work parties, and each time we marvel at the worms we find and the friends we make.  We don’t know these others that have also come to the work party, but together we all work on something that will make a difference. This is why I bring Tyler.  Regardless of how many trees he plants or blackberry roots he digs, he is taking part in a community action that matters, and witnessing hope in these people that care. And if worms are the symbol of belonging, than I am happy for worms to be what NSEA means to me.