Across the country, the National Wildlife Federation’s education program leaders, educators, and students are finding creative ways to engage their communities and work toward a just and equitable world. In this issue, you’ll read about Earth Tomorrow Atlanta’s yearly MLK Day of Service celebration at an urban forest with a unique history. Meanwhile, in Portland, Oregon, students are raising Chinook salmon eggs in their very own classrooms, creating a lifelong relationship with wildlife and conservation while also learning about the importance of salmon to local Indigenous tribes. 

We are also excited about the upcoming NWF EcoCareers Conference happening in April. Follow us on Instagram @nwfecoleaders or @nwfeducation for up-to-date information.

We hope you enjoy these stories from the field. Stay tuned for our next quarterly newsletter in May!

— Jennifer Brown
Digital Content Manager NWF’s Education & Engagement

MLK Day: It’s a Day On, Not a Day Off

Observed every year on the third Monday of January, the MLK Day of Service is dubbed nationwide as “A Day On, Not a Day Off.” It is the only federal holiday designated as a national day of service, and people around the country spend the day working to better their community.

Almost thirty years after officially being designated a federal holiday, the Earth Tomorrow program, which just celebrated its twentieth anniversary, continues to honor the mantra “A Day On, Not a Day Off.” This past Martin Luther King Jr. Day, they attended a day of service hosted by the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance located at the Outdoor Activity Center (OAC) in southwest Atlanta. Lauryn Grant, an Education and Engagement intern for the National Wildlife Federation’s Atlanta office, attended the event and shared her story with us.

Bat Boxes & Baseball

“Volunteers had the opportunity to work on the 26-acre urban forest throughout the morning and early afternoon. The event initially had over 300 volunteers registered; however, some of the volunteers canceled due to the anticipation of ice on the roads (and we’re not used to that in Atlanta!). Regardless, the service day continued with a group of dedicated and determined volunteers. 

As one of the volunteers, I had the opportunity to work with Brendon Barclay, the Manager of Education and Engagement for Earth Tomorrow at the National Wildlife Federation. We had the task of installing bat boxes in a field that were once the practice grounds of the historic baseball team, the Atlanta Black Crackers. The team would use this field, now owned and maintained by the OAC, to prepare for mostly minor league games in the Negro League.

To complete our task, it took Brendon’s son, Earth Tomorrow student Bryce Barclay, scaling up a ladder to install the bat boxes. These newly installed bat boxes will give bats a safe environment to care for their young. We also helped with trail maintenance, clearing a trail so that it was more visible to everyone who enjoys walking the different paths found in the urban forest. 

One of the highlights was a surprise visit by Georgia U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff! Senator Ossoff took time out of his busy schedule to visit the center in honor of the service day. Despite the cold weather and the early hours, volunteers still showed up and we were still able to accomplish so much. I enjoyed the opportunity to help the OAC and to honor Dr. King by volunteering. It was a great experience that I won’t forget.”

Interested in supporting the Earth Tomorrow program? Donate today! You can also follow them on Instagram @nwfearthtomorrow.

Free the Fry: Fourth Graders Foster Fish

As part of the Eco-Schools USA Salmon Stewards program, over 70 fourth graders from Chehalem Elementary School in Beaverton, Oregon, fostered 300 Chinook salmon for two months in classroom aquariums. After rearing the fish from egg to fry stage and learning about the salmon life cycle, watershed health, and cultural significance to local Indigenous tribes, students were excited to free the fry into their natural habitat! 

On January 4^th, the National Wildlife Federation and its Oregon affiliate, the Association of Northwest Steelheaders, joined partners Clean Water Services and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) for the salmon fry release event along the Tualatin River. Educational stations provided an opportunity for fun and exploration through a salmon migration activity, an interpretive walk through the woods, and investigating macroinvertebrates.

Setting Salmon Free

Despite wintry weather and worries of the usual Pacific Northwest downpour, the forecast held, and students got to enjoy exploring the natural area as they scampered between activity stations. Warm apple cider and hot chocolate were also a hit! The event’s impact was especially felt when many educators and students shared that this was their first-ever field trip experience due to the pandemic. Chehalem Elementary is a Title 1 school, one of five in the Portland-Metro area funded by the NOAA Bay Watershed Education and Training and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde through their Spirit Mountain Community Fund.

“The best part of the day was witnessing the excitement on students’ faces when they released their salmon fry – the same fry that they’ve been diligently fostering for months in a classroom aquarium — then finally freeing them into the wild.”

Morgan Parks, National Wildlife Federation Oregon Education Manager

In attendance were National Wildlife Federation staff members Erin Farris-Olsen, the new Regional Executive Director for the Northern Rockies, Prairies & Pacific Region; Morgan Parks, Oregon Education Manager; Gray Sorensen, AmeriCorps member; and volunteers from the Tualatin Valley Chapter of NW Steelheaders including President Tom VanderPlaat and education lead LeRoy Schultz.

Emerging Environmental Leaders

The National Wildlife Federation’s EcoLeaders Online Community and Career Center is a project-based leadership and career development program for high school and college students and early career professionals. Designed to help emerging environmental leaders turn their passion into a profession EcoLeaders provides opportunities for:

• Exploring a wide variety of environmental topics
• Learning about green career opportunities
• Pursuing project-based leadership certifications
• Connecting with fellow environmental justice leaders across the country

“I was able to see from the EcoLeaders program how many people out there were doing sustainability projects everywhere. It helped me realize that these aren’t isolated projects; it’s one big movement working for the betterment of our planet and our future.”

National Wildlife Federation EcoLeader Amira Odeh

EcoCareers Conference 2022

Don’t miss out on their upcoming EcoCareers Conference. This online annual meeting facilitates the development of personalized sustainability career plans, connects young leaders with employers, and sharpens job skills.

1. Zilker Metropolitan Park in Austin, Texas is one of the best-reviewed parks in the city. The 351 acre park offers a wide variety of recreational activities from disc golf to canoeing to hiking and has an off-leash dog area. The park also has different activities for different times of the year such as a Holiday Tree in December, a Kite Festival in March, and a Summer Musical with free events from late-March until September.

   

2. Acquired in 1871,Washington Park in Portland, Oregon has become one of the local’s favorites. Park visitors often like to come with their children to play on the city’s biggest playground. Also within the park’s 160 acres are amenities such as the Japanese Garden, the International Rose Test Garden, and Portland’s first zoo, the Oregon Zoo.

   

3. Known as the “Central Park” of Atlanta, Georgia, Piedmont Park is situated 2 miles from downtown Atlanta and has a calendar of activities for park goers to join and enjoy throughout the year. The 185 acre park has two playgrounds as well as a dog park and Green Market.

   

4. Robert E. Lee Park in Baltimore, Maryland is an ideal place to find wildlife and connect with nature. The park contains over 500 acres of woodlands and wetlands and surrounds Lake Roland. Along with providing an incentive to hike the trails through the Nature Quest program, park goers can also see or have their own art on the trail!

   

5. With over 1200 acres, Anacostia Park in Washington D.C. is one of the largest parks in the city. Located near the Anacostia River, this park has many recreational activities such as walking trails, bird watching, roller skating, and swimming. Some of the wildlife species that can be found in the park are milkweed, bald eagles, foxes, frogs, and more!

   

6. Seward Park in Seattle, Washington has a lot to offer park visitors. The 300 acre park has old growth forest areas, wooded trails, an amphitheater and a paved waterfront trail. Through Seward Park’s Audubon Center, the park hosts a variety of youth and family programs, wildlife classes and trainings, and other recreational and volunteer fun!

   

7. Albuquerque, New Mexico’s Rio Grande Nature Center Park is 270 acres and has multiple hiking and interpretive trails. Park amenities include an amphitheater, gardens, group picnic areas, and wildlife viewing blinds. The area is also great for bird watching and spotting Sandhill Cranes. Leashed dogs are allowed in certain areas.

   

8. At 4000 acres, Eagle Creek Park in Indianapolis, Indiana is the fourth largest city park in the United States. The park hosts many programs and activities such as music lessons, sailing lessons, camping, hiking, fishing, and hunting. Also, in the winter, the park allows cross-country skiing; then in the summer, the park opens its beach area from May to August.

   

9. Freedom Park is a 98 acre park in Mecklenburg County, Charlotte, North Carolina. The park is equipped with tennis courts, volleyball courts, soccer fields, and other recreational sporting facilities as well as walking trails and a scenic seven acre lake. Freedom Park also has a demonstration garden where visitors can explore the gardens and ask questions and take classes with master gardeners.

   

10. New York City’s second biggest park, Flushing Meadows Corona Park is a historical 1255 acre park where two of the World Fairs were hosted. As the largest park in Queens, the Park offers a wide range of amenities such as recreational fields, an off leash dog area, a boating lake, the Queens Zoo and Wi-Fi accessible spots. The park also has planted rain gardens composed of wetlands plants and grasses like Bald Cypress, Swamp Azalea, and Swamp Milkweed to control storm water runoff and beautify the area.

    

Looking for a park in your city? Try checking your local government’s parks and recreation website for park listings.

The Association of Northwest Steelheaders (ANWS), the Oregon affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation, works to conserve and protect Portland’s salmon populations and other wildlife through community education and outreach as well as policy action. Chinook salmon are currently threatened by development, over-fishing, and habitat loss.

Through programs such as Eggs to Fry, where students gain a hands-on learning experience raising salmon or trout in the classroom, Northwest Steelheaders teach about the importance of maintaining healthy waters, sustainable hatcheries and habitat for salmon and other key fish in Portland.

Related: How to Get Kids Hooked on Fishing and Create Future Conservationists

In addition to engaging local communities in programs to connect with their local aquatic wildlife, habitat issues such as coal export terminals are critical issues tackled by ANWS, who successfully saw a recent coal terminal proposal rejected in 2014.

Portland was recently named one of the Top 10 Cities for Wildlife as part of the National Wildlife Week 2015 celebration. Did your city make the grade?

But my arrival in Portland, Maine gave me hope. Organizers from across the region had called on citizens to stand up and demand that a likely proposal by oil giants Enbridge and Exxon to use an existing 62 year-old pipeline to bring carbon intensive, dirty tar sands through a pipeline that runs through Canada, and into Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine for export be stopped. Tar sands are a thick, tarry substance mined in Alberta, the most extreme of “extreme oil.”  Mining them requires the vast destruction of pristine boreal forest habitat — the mines and their toxic waste ponds can be seen from space. However, this destruction is not the worst news about tar sands.  It is the climate impacts of tar sands that is so alarming. Tar sands are far more carbon intensive than conventional oil, and the tar sands region contains two times the amount of carbon that has already been emitted by human fossil fuel use, which is why leading climatologists  have warned that tar sands development would hurtle us past any hope for climate stability.

Three days later, concerned citizens and groups in Vermont demanded that the same pipeline proposal be subjected to Vermont law that would give Vermonters the ability to reject this pipeline project.

Tar sands are part of a bigger picture, one that demands action to stem the tide of dirty fuels that are destroying our climate. No one under the age of 28 has lived to see a month where temperatures have been below the 20^th century average.  If we fail to act, crisp winter mornings may soon be a thing of the past in northern New England.  We can do better than that.  And the people of New England are demanding that now is the time to say no to dirty energy and yes to a clean energy future.

Help protect Northeast wildlife and communities from tar sands oil by urging the U.S. State Department to stop the Exxon/Enbridge pipeline!