Good morning everyone!
We have a very busy nearshore season coming up this spring. For those of you new to these trips, visits to the nearshore help students make connections between their freshwater monitoring site and Puget Sound. They learn about sub tidal marine organisms at the marina (as a diver brings up sea stars, crabs, nudibranchs and more), sample the marine plankton and water quality, conduct male/female crab studies and explore the beach at low tide. These trips are hugely popular among the students and teachers, and I wanted to let you all know our dates just as soon as we had them!
This year we are once again hosting Komachin Middle School at the beach. This is a big undertaking, as in the past we’ve hosted in the neighborhood of 120 students in one day! This works by rotating groups of 60 students each between Tolmie State Park and Zittel’s Marina, and having 3-4 stations at each site. Divide and conquer! To make this happen, we really rely on volunteers and community partners. I just heard back from the science team at Komachin, and they are able to bring students the following dates:
May 19/20
May 23/24
June 1/2
In addition to Komachin, we will also be offering trips to 6-10 other classes this spring. This model is different, with just 25-30 students attending in one day rather than 120! For these trips, we typically are in need of assistance on the beach with the low tide walk and/or crab surveys. I set aside these 10 dates, keeping in mind that we may use all or only some of them (and I will keep you updated as we have classes sign up for them):
May 4th
May 5th
May 6th
May 9th
May 10th
May 11th
May 25th
June 6th
June 7th
June 8th
Last but not least, I would like to schedule a volunteer meeting to go over the program and answer any questions, as well as hold a marine organism id session at Zittel’s Marina prior to these trips so that volunteers are familiar with what the kids might be seeing when they come out. I think I’ll send out a doodle poll for both of these events, so stay tuned! For now, please check these dates against your spring calendar and let me know if you are interested in helping out with any of them. Also, feel free to forward to anyone you think might be interested.
Thanks!
Stephanie