Junior Stream Stewards
A Watershed Education and Stewardship Program for Middle School Students
Junior Stream Stewards is a new and unique Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group program for middle school students linking watershed education with stewardship. This program coincides with the school year and challenges students to apply classroom lessons with a stream restoration project in their backyard. In a combination of classroom programs and field study trips, students learn all about salmon and the stream habitat that supports them by studying water quality, native plants, aquatic insects, the salmon life cycle and much more. The program culminates in a community service-learning project to protect and enhance their local stream, in partnership with local organizations, businesses and governments.
 One group of students marked stomrdrains in downtown Concrete with decals that read ‘Dump No Waste- Drains to Stream’ for their service learning project. |
The purpose of Junior Stream Stewards is to increase students’ knowledge for their local salmon stream and inspire community participation to preserve it. Students will improve the aesthetics and ecological health of their community and be empowered with problem solving skills to restore and protect local streams for future generations. Ultimately the goal is to build and foster a culture of land and water stewardship with students that will serve them the rest of their lives.
Concrete Middle School students toured Lorenzan Creek, from headwaters to outlet. |
 The other student group designed and posted stream signs for Lorenzan Creek. |
Statewide, students are struggling to meet science requirements associated with educational achievement tests. Junior Stream Stewards is specifically designed to help students understand science by applying it to their community’s stream. Students are more likely retain concepts re-enforced through personal hands-on experience. SFEG works with local school districts to supply staff, materials, lesson plans and funding for field trips that would not otherwise be available to teachers. To learn more about the Junior Stream Stewards program, please contact Lucy or Alison at the SFEG office.
Students toured the Marblemount Hatchery and helped spawn
Ross Lake rainbow trout.
The Junior Stream Stewards program needs financial support. Over the next two school years we hope to involve at least 300 students in Junior Stream Stewards. SFEG has already obtained over $6,500 for this program through grants, and now we are seeking community support to assist with an additional $15,000. With your tax-deductible donation, you will receive recognition through publications, be invited to attend field trips and presentations, and contribute to igniting a sense of wonder and stewardship in our leaders of tomorrow. We are grateful to the following businesses for much-needed funding for the Junior Stream Stewards Program:
Cap Sante Marina
Cascade Natural Gas
Fidalgo Fly Fishers
Frontier Bank
Janicki Industries
Janicki Logging and Construction
Kiwanis Club of Burlington
Lakeside Industries
Northern Marine Company, LLC
PACCAR
Pacific Mariner, Inc.
Puget Sound Energy
Shell Oil Products US
Sierra Pacific Foundation
Skagit Community Foundation
Skagit State Bank
Summit Bank
Tesoro
Washington Alder
