Have you visited the historic Red Barn on the Clear Creek Trail? It sits on the estuary in the middle of the Silverdale commercial district off Bucklin Hill Road. The downstairs is full of interesting information about the Clear Creek Trail and the Puget Sound. The upstairs, a former hayloft, houses artifacts from Silverdale's good old days - including school desks with holes for ink bottles! Last night the tiny loft was crammed with thirty potential volunteers for the Salmon in the Classroom field trips in March. Central Kitsap students are raising Chum salmon in their classrooms. The field trips are built around the release of the fingerlings into the Clear Creek system. Nearly a thousand students will go on the field trips; last night was a training and pep rally to get more volunteers! I think it was a success.
The field trips are broken up into four stations: tree planting, Salmon release, water quality testing and stream "bugs". (Guess who leads the bug station)
Tex Lewis, long time Clear Creek Trail organizer and tree planter extraordinaire, told the volunteers how to get the kids to plant trees without bludgeoning each other with shovels and strangling the plants. Tex is about six feet four and lives up to his name, wearing a ten gallon hat that sported a lively feather. He is witty and obviously dedicated to getting students out to the trail learning about the value of our environment and getting a few (thousand) trees in the ground. What would we do without Tex?
Sam Hoakem came next. Salmon in the Classroom was his brainchild enlisting his Kiwanis group to help. He talked about the salmon release. If you ever get an opportunity hear his salmon tales, do it. I certainly learned a lot.
Pat Kirschbaum from Kitsap SSWM program let the group learn about the water quality station by doing it. Everyone joined in by being a shaker, "piller", or water gatherer to test creek water for pH. Pat, by the way, schedules ALL of the teachers for their field trips. Yes, she herds cats. Pat is a gem of a resource. She does a mountain of outreach and education in the county and does it all as a part time employee. She deserves a medal.
I ended the evening by having everyone push their chairs to the side of the room. Some of the brave participants played a rousing game of Macroinvertebrate Mayhem. Yes, we had a running game in the loft of the red barn! The players became stream bugs, stonefly larvae, mayfly larvae and caddis fly larvae. Their goal was to get down the stream before they were caught by an environmental stresser. It is always fun to pose as a fourth grader!
At the end of the night we had volunteers sign up for the field trips. If you would like to join us, let me know.
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