Category: Snoqualmie Stewardship

It’s Earth Month!

Wednesday, 06 April, 2022 15:54 Written by Stewardship Partners
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April is our favorite time of the year! The sun is showing itself again, temps are warming up (ever so slightly), new leaves are beginning to reveal themselves, it’s planting season and it’s EARTH MONTH! It’s been almost three years since we’ve been able to celebrate Earth Day in the field by engaging the public in direct environmental action. Earth Day turns 42 years old on April 22nd and we invite you to help us celebrate it all month long. We are organizing multiple riparian restoration events focusing on salmon habitat restoration on the Snoqualmie River in Carnation and Duvall, WA (dates below). Join us in the celebration!

As we head into Earth month, we’ve got some great events in the works! 

  • Centennial Fields Park Rain Garden Maintenance – Saturday April 9th, 2022 (9am-12pm) – Sign Up Here
     
  • Salmon Habitat Restoration on the Snoqualmie River – Saturday April 16th (10am-2pm) – Sign Up Here
     
  • Salmon Habitat Restoration with Stewardship Partners & Long Live the Kings – Friday April 22nd (10am-2pm) – Sign Up Here
     
  • City of Duvall Earth and Arbor Day Celebration at Depot Park – Saturday April 23rd (11am-2pm): stop by our table to learn about green stormwater infrastructure and enter to win a free rain barrel! More Info Here
     
  • Feast on the Farm – September 24th, 2022 – More info coming soon!

Time to Stand up for Our Beloved Orcas

Tuesday, 19 March, 2019 13:33 Written by Stewardship Partners
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by David Burger, Executive Director

With the devastating news about Tahlequah and Scarlet this summer, I found myself longing for a time when their struggles were not a common theme. I reflected on a time when I was a young boy and my grandfather took me out to his sailboat to see a pod of orcas in the San Juan Islands and was blown away by these majestic creatures.  This memorable moment gave me great respect for the natural environment and a big reason why I’ve dedicated my life empowering people to become caretakers of the environment and our native wildlife.  Our Southern Resident Killer Whale population have been in the national spotlight and it hasn’t been good news with no new calves born in the last three years.  There are many factors for the decline in the 30-year low population relating to pollution, habitat, food supply, etc., and Stewardship Partners directly worked to solve these.

Orcas rely heavily on Chinook salmon, another endangered species, making our work to restore habitat and keep our waters clean one of the most important actions we can do to help orcas.  It’s clear that we are at a critical time for our Southern Resident orcas, and we urge you to take action to protect and restore habitat. Become a Stewardship Partner today by donating, volunteering, or learning what actions you can do in your daily lives.  It’s my hope that I can show my grandkids orcas in the Puget Sound one day.

Sustainability Super Heroes: Inspiring young environmental stewards

Tuesday, 08 May, 2018 10:25 Written by Stewardship Partners
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Elizabeth Wing, third-grade teacher, is our Sustainability Super Hero! On a daily basis she inspires her third-graders to become great stewards of the environment at Carnation Elementary School, about 30 miles from Seattle, in the Snoqualmie Valley. We met Elizabeth in 2015 at a Snoqualmie Indian Tribe Earth Day event at Tolt McDonald Park in Carnation. Her students were working with the Tribe to restore salmon habitat along the Tolt River. Elizabeth came up to our information table, picked up a rain garden pamphlet and declared, “I want our third-graders to build a rain garden at our school!” It just so happened that Stewardship Partners recently learned about a new grant program that would provide funds to do just that. We let Elizabeth know that we’d be interested in partnering on a project with her students and the rest is history.

The school now has a brand-new rain garden as of January 2018. Students helped to install the rain garden with the Stewardship Partners’ Snoqualmie Stewardship restoration crew and the Snoqualmie Tribe’s Environmental and Natural Resources program staff. A team from Aspect Consulting, who designed the rain garden, volunteered to help with the install.

         Snoqualmie Stewardship crew with 3rd grade students and Ms. Wing

The goal is for generations of students to learn about, care for, and maintain the rain garden. An additional part of the vision was to connect students with mother nature’s larger rain gardens; habitat buffers. As part of their science program, the students that installed the rain garden later joined Stewardship Partners and Nature Vision at Oxbow Farm and Conservation Center to help maintain and plant native trees and shrubs in our beloved “Alder Grove” buffer.

“The rain garden and restoration opportunities allowed students to develop a connection to the community, unique ecosystems, and to develop a sense of place. Elementary students learn best and remember important learning targets through project-based learning and inquiry field studies. They take their stewardship learning and share their insights with their families. All students see themselves as citizen scientists with powerful voices.”
— Elizabeth Wing