Students back working on creek

Sisters High School combines science, English and physical education in its Interdisciplinary Environmental Expeditions (IEE) class - a class that demonstrates that a lot of learning can be done outside the traditional classroom.

Last Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, science teacher Glenn Herron took his IEE class of juniors to meet with the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council's Kolleen Yake and Kelly Beck at the old Leithauser irrigation dam site. The dam was removed recently as part of a region-wide effort to improve fish passage.

Yake and Beck were eagerly waiting at the banks of the creek with some 600 plugs of new seedling cottonwoods, spirea, service berry, alder, bitterbrush and ponderosa pine for the students to plant. Such programs, established by the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council (UDWC) and partners help in all areas of water management and education.

UDWC recently received a grant from The Roundhouse Foundation to provide hands-on watershed education for Sisters middle and high school students through The Upstream Project.

In partnership with the Sisters Ranger District and Sisters Schools, UDWC will coordinate and facilitate an eight-month environmental stewardship project for students to explore and study Whychus Creek and the Metolius River.

Students will participate in stream restoration, learn about the hydrological and biological history of the stream, and engage in streamside creative art and writing activities, through the IEE program.

Another outcome of the IEE partnership will be the creation of a music CD, with songs written creekside by the students, to help engage and inspire the surrounding community to develop the same sense of stewardship the students have for their hometown rivers and streams.

"This project will accomplish multiple layers of outreach, the students themselves will connect to the creek in meaningful ways, and the student-created CD will share a stewardship message with the wider community," said Yake.

Students will present their accomplishments from the year and perform songs from their CD at "Students Speak: A Watershed Summit" and the Upstream Dinner - community events taking place in May of 2014.

The students get a half-day out of school - not to play - but to learn and do vital restoration work on Whychus Creek. At the same time they have the opportunity to see, feel, hear and engage themselves in the creek and all that surrounds it.

After spending about an hour planting seedlings along the banks of the Whychus side-channel, Beck gave the students a piece of paper on a clipboard and invited them to sit down near the creek and create art and poetry of what Whychus means to them, and what it means to the world around them.

The students quietly went off by themselves to sit under the alders, among the ponderosa along the bank, and often to sit close to the murmuring water where they allowed the nature of the place to seep into their thinking.

After about a half-hour they all come together again to hear what they had created.

As Kathy reviewed the poems and art, she said, "I love to watch the students take the time to let the stream inspire them, produce work like this, and do it so meaningfully."