The Source:
A Newsletter of the Thornton Creek Project
Winter 1998
Plans and Dreams Become Realities
Over the past 12 months, the Project’s plans for becoming a sustainably organized, staffed, and supported organization have become realities. Highlights of the changes include: making the transition from Lakeside School as the "home institution" to North Seattle Community College, creating and funding the positions of Project Manager and Teacher Leader/Co-Coordinator, and supporting the establishment of the Project’s Stewards’ Council. Much work still lies ahead, but so far, it looks like the research and difficult decisions of 1996-’97 have served the Project well.
For me the Thornton Creek Project is…
"…an exciting opportunity to combine my professional, intellectual, and spiritual interest in ecology and the outdoors and life with my interests and abilities to teach, to shape, and inform minds and attitudes and to contribute to the community (and thereby become a member of the community)."
An Evening of Reflection and Planning
On November 5th, 1997 approximately thirty people participated in an assessment of the Thornton Creek Project’s activities. The evening was facilitated by Lisa Bryce Lewis, GREEN Director of Educational Program Development, who brought her expertise on watershed education programs and assessment of organizations; Janet Charnley, co-coordinator and lead teacher of the Thornton Creek Project; Peter Hayes, CO-coordinator of the Thornton Creek Project; and Jessica Nelson, the Thornton Creek Project¹s project manager
Last year The Thornton Creek Project's Steerer's Team agreed it was time to review The Thornton Creek Project's past work, to look at what is currently working well, and to verify our future needs. The desired outcomes for the evening included to come away with a sense of shared accomplishment, to look at a collection of qualitative information on the programs success, and to set action steps for clarifying connections to students, teachers and schools.
Karen Lewis and Richard Gelb helped the project develop ideas for a logo for the organization and a tag line to go with it. Karen made several sketches during the evening of visual images based on the conversations which occurred. She developed these further with a sub-committee and the ideas and images evolved into the logo of the Thornton Creek Project which you see at the top of this newsletter. Richard led evening participants through several exercises to capture a few words that best describe the Thornton Creek Project . These few selected words, discovery linking community, also became a part of the title and logo.
The majority of the evening was spent by the participants in small working groups, tackling several questions that the Project has considered while discussing TCP's future. They were all questions with which we have wrestled since the Project began, and the assessment evening was a good time to consider both where we are in relation to them, and where we wish to be in order to most successfully fulfill our mission. The questions were centrally focused on meeting the needs and interests of students and successfully engaging and supporting teachers in the watershed. It is our feeling that for the Project to move to its next level of fulfilling its mission, we must more successfully engage and support the teachers in the watershed's schools than we are currently doing and that the key to doing this lies in how we understand and answer these interrelated questions, and - of course - act on our decisions.
The question discussed during the evening centered around the following topics included:
Curricular Approaches: Structure vs. Freedom?,
Supporting Teachers: Professional Development,
Supporting Communications and Cooperation, & Framing Thoughts: Staffing Support and Technology.
TCP team leaders summarized the results of these questions and are being used to develop goals for the project. The feedback we received was invaluable to our looking towards TCP’s future.
A special thank you to all the evening¹s participants. Your contributions are helping us to make positive decisions about the Thornton Creek Project and future. The italicized quotes in boxes that you find throughout this newsletter are from participants of this evening during a reflection activity.
Stewards’ Council Established & Active
In answer to the question of how to best enlist representatives of the groups who most directly benefit from the work of the project to provide advice and to work toward equitably sharing responsibility for making sure that basic support is in place, the Project, with the welcome and capable leadership of Mr. Dick Harris of Alley Chevrolet and Dr. Peter Ku of North Seattle Community College, has formed a Stewards’ Council. A successful first annual meeting was held Dec. 11, 1997. The new Stewards were enthusiastic and provided useful input on how TCP can seek effective ongoing support for its programs. Although it was planned that the Council would only meet annually, several expressed the desire to meet again in the interim to begin their work. Special thanks are due to all of the members and particularly to Mr. Harris and Dr. Ku.
For me the Thornton Creek Project is…
"…an opportunity to get in the field, an excuse to enjoy the natural, a way to let students (and myself) rediscover, an outlet for education into the wild of the local…"
Project Receives Crucial Support and Commitments
The Thornton Creek Project has benefited from generous support both in the current school year and for the 1998-’99 school year. As the Project moves to the goal of sharing responsibility for support equitably between the benefiting partner organizations, funding in this transitional year has come from the consortium of federal agencies known as the Urban Resources Partnership. In addition to the $36,000 partially supporting the Project Manager and Teacher Leader positions, the Project is benefiting from active advice and involvement from staff in the participating agencies. Looking to the year ahead, nearly two thirds of the necessary funding has been secured, thanks to the ongoing commitment of Lakeside School to support one of the CO-coordinator position, a commitment by North Seattle Community College to support the Teacher Leader position, and a gift from Bruce and Jolene McCaw to cover a portion of the Project Manager position. The Project thanks all for their important support. The Project seeks an additonal $21,000 to support the Project Manager position for the coming school year.
Position Opening On the Horizon
Reminiscent of advertisements placed for crew members in the early days of polar exploration - "applicants wanted …. Hard work, long hours, low pay, high risk, future uncertain….." - the Project will be accepting applications late this winter for the annually appointed internship position of Project Manager. It is a full time, paid internship beginning Sept. 1, 1998 and ending June 15, 1999. Help from all Project cooperators in spreading news of the position and encouraging a wide and diverse pool of applicants in both needed and welcomed. For more information about the position, contact CO-coordinator, Peter Hayes, at 440-2754.
Committee Updates
Governance and Support Team Activities -
During 1997, the Governance Team worked to successfully bring the new organizational elements of the Thornton Creek Project into operation, in addition to pursuing funding sources. The major achievement, in addition to the move from Lakeside School to a new "home" at North Seattle Committee College, was the constituting of the new Stewards Council, co-chaired by Dick Harris, President of the Lake City Chamber of Commerce and Alley Chevrolet, and Peter Ku, President of the NSCC.
(See article above).
Funding for next year was sought from several sources and we’ve secured important support through our efforts (see article above).
Thanks to the Governance Team’s efforts and others involved we can see the pieces falling into place for a sustainable long-term TCP governance structure.
Monitoring Team Activities -
A goal of the monitoring team of the Thornton Creek Project is to collect and provide information, workshops, speakers and publications to enable individuals to better understand the watershed they live in. We would like to encourage the use and sharing of information. Please read the Monitoring Report insert for more information about the monitoring listserve, Coordinated Monitoring Program, equipment for loan, Monitoring Roundtable, species monitoring and more.
Sister Watershed Team Activities -
The Project's involvement with the Elwell Creek sister watershed took an important step forward this Fall, and is currently on hold. The step forward was a day-long workshop in Monroe and the watershed with representatives from Monroe Schools, Thornton Creek Schools, and related business and government supporters. Use of the sister watershed is currently on hold due to two factors: 1) it is unclear whether Monroe teachers have a level of interest necessary to make the relationship work well, and 2) some Thornton Creek teachers are concerned that the intensively logged condition of the Elwell watershed does not meet the initial criteria of working with a relatively undeveloped watershed.
Adult Learning Team Activities-
The Adult Learning Team helped put on a successful Forum # 5 this year with Evergreen School. Tony Angell, featured guest speaker, gave an excellent talk about birds and brought some of his recent drawings. There will be no forum this spring but check out the calendar section for several upcoming workshops and other events. We have also come up with a better system of organization for future workshops by deciding upon and creating guidelines for instructor pay, workshop participant fees, logistics of offering credit/clock hours for teachers, and other details to be applied to any workshop offered by TCP. This team need only meet two or three times a year and we are looking for more volunteers to join this committee as we facilitate adult learning and professional development opportunities.
Technology and Communications Team Activities -
Under the welcome leadership of Dave Brubaker and Andy Barker, this team has identified three most pressing areas to work on. They are improving the content, presentation, and method of managing the Project's website, improving systems for collecting, storing and sharing watershed-related information, and assessing and improving schools' access to technology-based communication. Major progress has been made in the first two areas, and the group is broadening its focus to the third.
Confluence Team Activities -
The Confluence team has been organizing this year’s Confluence, a day long gathering of 5th through 8th grade classes from within the watershed. Students will participate in activities with professionals who are knowledgeable about the watershed. They then problem solve about community issues with the other students. The Confluence promotes cooperation, strengthens decision-making and problem solving skills, creates new understandings, and enhances community linkages through age-appropriate role-playing activities. The title of this year’s Confluence is Politics of a Watershed - A Role-playing Game. This year’s event will be held at Shoreline Center on April 22nd. Our group meets twice a month to ensure the success of this year’s Confluence. We are always seeking suggestions and comments as well as new additions to our group. For more information on how to get involved, please call Jess Nelson (526-0187) or Heather Moss (217-9244).
To me the Thornton Creek Project is…
"…a useful, valuable way to expose students to tie how we live and how our actions impact nature in terms of the creek’s health and vitality, which in turn affects us and the quality of our lives and homes."
Watershed Action Plan by Cheryl Klinker
(Taken from the January 1998 edition of the Thornton Creek Currents, the newsletter of the Thornton Creek Alliance)
The Thornton Creek Watershed Management Committee is in full swing as they get our watershed action plan off the ground. At this stage, the plan has three components: public participation and notification; education (both for committee members and the general public); and a work plan. Planning for all components is expected to be completed by mid-January. Thereafter, the plan will serve as a guide to the committee as it puts together a characterization study of the watershed, addresses specific problems in the watershed, develops a strategy, sets priorities, gathers input, and formulates an action plan.
Action items in the final plan will focus on abating nonpoint source pollution, improving habitat, preserving biological resources, addressing water quality, and raising public appreciation of watershed values. The final plan, due by June 30, 1999, must then be approved by the Department of Ecology and the Seattle City Council.
The committee’s twenty-four members represent a variety of interests. In addition to local residents, including the Indian community, there are also representatives from schools, government, businesses, and environmental organizations.
Meetings are open to the public, although comments may be limited to the discretion of the committee. For details about the group and its planning effort, contact Chris Woelfel at Seattle Public Utilities, 684-7599.
For me the Thornton Creek Project is…
"…a working diverse community organized around a landscape unit (the watershed) that promotes understanding about the landscape vital to our quality of life and the beauty of the Thornton Creek Project is its integration of the social, economic, political, and emotional aspects of our life."
New Watershed Resources Available
Copies of the following resources may be ordered by contacting Project Manager Jess Nelson at 526-0187. Prices are listed separately.
Thornton Creek Reader - The Reader is intended as a resource for students, teachers, and others making their way along the creek, around the watershed, and into the history of the whole area. Discovering that history is quite a bit like looking for the creek itself: whichever you’re exploring, you’ll find some bits right out in the open, while other parts have been buried and camouflaged, with fragments of branches poking out in unexpected places. The material of the Reader itself comes from various treasure hunts, public and private.
This fourth edition of A Thornton Creek Reader is more of the same but different. It’s basically the same grab bag as other editions crammed with official reports, project plans, maps, and newspaper clippings, but with additions that start telling the story earlier and bring it (more) up to date than the 1995 edition. Also, while some pages have been recopied, we’ve removed others that have deteriorated until they are no longer readable. Wherever possible we’ve added dates and sources that were accidentally lopped off in earlier editions. And finally, a table of contents has been included to make navigation somewhat easier.
We would like to thank Chris Owen and Elizabeth Bayley for all of their time and effort that made it possible to get this edition of the Reader ready and available for use.
One free copy is available for each school within the watershed, otherwise copies are $8.75 each.
Right Places Guide - This guide has been created by volunteer efforts for the Thornton Creek Project. We hope interested teachers and citizens in the Thornton Creek watershed will find it a useful tool to expand their knowledge and understanding of this place. The Guide includes specific information about sites within the watershed that provide outdoor learning opportunities. Each site listing includes a picture of the site, directions on how to get there, # of students the site can handle without destruction to sensitive areas, the suitable age and safety rating for the site, and notes on site history, current projects, and questions one might consider when they visit. The Guide also provides a stream survey activity with a worksheet, glossary, plant and animal species identification charts, and more. One free copy is available for each school within the watershed, otherwise copies are available for $14.00.
Thornton Creek Watershed Atlas - After two years of challenging and hassle-ridden work, the first edition of A Thornton Creek Watershed Atlas is at last complete. Those of us who compiled it wonder what thoughts and feelings will come to readers as they explore the twenty pages and seventeen maps of the watershed. What will surprise, provoke, or interest them? What additional questions might it prod us into asking and, better yet, working to answer? We regret that there are many ways in which the atlas’ accuracy falls below the level of quality that we would like. Work on a 2nd edition, which will correct inaccuracies and expand on the content has already started; we welcome and need your suggestions and involvement.
The atlas’ goal is to increase and share the information that is available about the watershed in hopes of improving the degree to which decisions for the future are based on what we know. Because the information is stored in a computer-based geographic information system (GIS), to which too few watershed residents have access, one goal of the printed atlas is to spread the benefits of the GIS as broadly as possible. As with the GIS, the atlas hopefully helps us to see what is happening in the watershed and the remarkable interconnections between many factors. The driving force behind the atlas’ launching was Justin Casserly who sadly died a year ago while kayaking in Mexico. The project has been seen to completion by an eclectic team led by students at Lakeside and the University of Washington and supported by many community members. The cost of copies is unfortunately high at $30. A King County grant is helping to make 50 copies for the active schools and community organizations and we are exploring options for making copies available at a more affordable cost. Representations of the maps should be available on the Project’s website by early March. We hope that the atlas is as much an adventure in discovery linking community as it has been for those of us who wrestled it through to completion.
Website Revamp!
Thanks to intern Time McGee, the TCP website is cleaned up, snazzed up, updated, and easier to navigate. Vic Lundquist is continuing Tim’s good work to make the TCp website more complete. The new website address on the North Seattle Community College server is: http://nsccux.sccd.ctc.edu/~tcp/
However, we are also looking into our own domain name. We will keep you posted about any URL (address) changes, although most likely you will be able to link to a new website from the old.
TCP Listserves Up and Running
TCP has several new listserves functioning at this time. To subscribe to any of the listserves mentioned below, just send a message to the listserve address from the account you wish to subscribe and include "subscribe <your@address>" in the body of the message (quotes are unnecessary). If you are having problems subscribing please contact Jess (526-0187 or tcp@nsccux.sccd.ctc.edu).
Team/Committee Listserve - We have set up listserves for each team to facilitate communication between team members and to post meeting times. Call Jess if you do not receive your team’s announcements via e-mail.
General TCP Listserve - The general Thornton Creek Project listserve is again working. It needs updating badly. If anyone loves entering e-mail addresses into a computer please lend us your time. We try to use this listserve infrequently for important announcements or to post the newsletter so as not to clog up your in boxes We have sent a couple of e-mails via this listserve this month, so if you have not received these e-mails with the listserve address below as the sender and would like to subscribe, please do.
Listserve address: TCP-General@nsccux.sccd.ctc.edu
Science Listserve - Though we often remind ourselves and others that Science isn’t the only, or most important, academic discipline involved in the watershed, there is nothing wrong with sharing the truth that Science teachers have been more actively involved in the watershed than teachers in any other discipline. Because of this, Science teachers were the first in the watershed to choose to meet together in the winter of 1997 in a first "roundtable" meeting. To help facilitate ongoing communication, the group of Science educators and scientists asked that a simple e-mail listserve be set up. This has now been arranged.
Listserve address: TCP-Sci@nsccux.sccd.ctc.edu
Monitoring Listserve - A listserve has been created to enable people, we hope particularly schools, to share with each other current monitoring information, to use as a place to ask questions and receive ideas. We encourage student participation as well.
Listserve address: TCP-Monitor@nsccux.sccd.ctc.edu
Rudy Project Launched
The 6th graders at Lakeside school helped us launch the pilot year of the Rudy Book. The idea for this project came about as lower elementary classes expressed the desire to become involved in the educational cooperation related to the Thornton Creek watershed, but a barrier to participation is that there are few suitable curricular materials to support their work. This book will be an excellent start to getting good materials in place. For middle school kids the Rudy experience provides an adventure in knowing the watershed and creatively communicating through developing and sharing a story. The Rudy story is designed as a curriculum resource for children ages 8-12, whose parents and teachers can introduce concepts of watershed ecology and urban ecosystems, using the example of this well-known Northwest urban watershed.
This high-adventure evolving book centers around an intrepid mouse, whose travels down Thornton Creek lead young readers to an understanding of watershed ecology and their part in the urban ecosystem. On one level (fiction), the story belongs to Rudy Mouse, who escapes with her brother mouse from a pet store in Northgate Mall, where Thornton Creek begins in North Seattle, and travels downstream to the creek’s estuary in Lake Washington. On another level (nonfiction), the book uses Rudy’s adventures to examine the role of a watershed in an urban landscape and the role that children can play as citizens and caretakers of their neighborhood ecosystems.
The incredible part about this activity is that students make decisions about how the creation process works and then create the entire story themselves. The pilot year participants include: Lakeside School 6th grade students, John Rogers Elementary 1st, 2nd grade and 3rd grade students, North Seattle Community College Adult Basic Education students, Karen Lewis, a professional artist, and Marion Vokey, an art educator, (helping with illustrations). The students all participate in different pieces of the creative process of researching, writing, reviewing, revising, reading, and illustrating Rudy chapters. The project includes many explorations into the watershed to experience where Rudy’s adventures happen.
This project can include many participants and many different schools. If you are interested please let us know. Check out our website soon for more detailed Rudy information as well as versions of the Rudy chapters written by the students.
For me, the Thornton Creek Project is…
"…a collaboration of people’s efforts, visions, spirits, and labors toward making their community richer in knowledge, experiences, and healthy lives, and the process is 80% of the benefits it brings."
Watershed Geographic Information Systems Work Makes Slow But Steady Progress
Thanks to the help of university and high school students the goal of helping six "pilot" schools and one "pilot" library to begin making active use of the GIS has been nearly reached. Since the beginning of this school year, the first edition of the watershed atlas has been completed and data has been assembled in preparation for sharing it with pilot groups through a "best of the data" CD. The ways that GIS is being used in this watershed has become of interest to groups around the region, and presentations have been made to such groups as the Washington Geographic Information Council. GIS related goals for the remainder of the year include having the pilot groups up and running, and working with City staff and others on plans for broader-based, more equitably accessible use of GIS in many aspects of cooperation in this watershed.
Interns - Educating Themselves Through Important and Real Work
In the past year, the Project has been fortunate in having a major increase in involvement by post-high school aged interns. Excellent interns have combined their skill, integrity, and interest with many of the Project’s areas of need to create good experiences for both the interns and the project. In chronological order, the recent interns include: Laura Nachiem and Paul Kelly, serving as Project Managers in the winter and spring of ’97; Charlie Zwick, serving as all around helper from the fall of ’96 to the present; Missy Frystzacki and Heather Tarr, from the Univ. of Washington serving as invaluable GIS interns from Sept. ’97 to the present; Elizabeth Bayley, serving as history research and general helper this past fall, Tim McGee, tackling the task of revamping our website during the month of January (check out the new website to see his great work!), and Scott Anderson of North Seattle Community College, currently wading into the adventure of compiling and organizing all water quality data for the watershed. The work of all of these people and the many volunteers makes a unique and important difference. When you see a chance, please join us in thanking them.
Internship/Volunteer Opportunities!
There are several volunteer and internship opportunities available with the Thornton Creek Project. Aside from those listed below, TCP has numerous other projects sitting on the backburner just waiting for someone with the time and energy to grab and move forward on. Internships are a mutual exchange of learning and growth for both the Project and the intern. For more information call the Project Manager, Jess Nelson, @ 526-0187.
Confluence - We are still looking for volunteers to help facilitate the fun-filled Confluence day on April 22nd (see Confluence Team Activities Update section for more information).
TCP Brochure - We would like to have better descriptive information available about the Project. This includes a brochure that could be handed out to people wanting to know more about us. If you have graphic design skills or an interest in helping in the creation of this brochure, please give us a call.
Streamtable - Stashed away in the back of a classroom this streamtable sits, unused, abused, and kind of a mess. This streamtable could be a useful tool for showing how a watershed functions - water runoff, human impacts, pollution diffusion, stream flow, importance of wetlands, causes of flooding, and more. The streamtable needs someone to help clean it up and then to work with it to create a simulation of the watershed. Once finished we hope to loan it out to schools for classroom demonstrations and learning opportunities.
Restoration - If you just want to get out and get your hands muddy give us a call. We receive several calendars of restoration projects needing extra hands!
"…This [TCP] brings the one world, "we are all in this together," concept into practical form and it conveys the idea that nature isn’t just "out there" somewhere, it can be represented by a creek flowing through a metropolitan area."
A New Organization Helps Bring Students into the Watershed to Do Good Work
Youth for Environmental Service (YES), a local non-profit organization, believes that environmental education invites students to explore the world around them. YES helps in this exploration by integrating service learning more effectively into environmental education. YES correlates projects with teachers’ curriculum and youths’ interests. YES organizes and supervises service learning projects, such as planting of native vegetation, removing non-native vegetation, and creating urban wildlife habitat, specifically for young people so they can help solve local environmental problems. Students therefore learn about environmental issues in both the classroom and in hands-on service learning projects. The YES program offers two main services FREE to schools: presentations to classrooms and assemblies about local Puget Sound environmental issues, and organization and supervision of environmental community service projects for your students or classrooms. For more information please call Heather Moss, YES Program Coordinator at (206)217-9244.
North Seattle Community College does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age , marital status or disability.
For more information including accommodations for people with special needs, call (206)526-0187.