Photos & Video by Don Backman for the Tillamook County Pioneer
On March 19th , Tillamook Estuaries Partnership, along with dozens of community partners and volunteers, hosted the 23rd annual Children’s Clean Water Festival at Twin Rocks Friends Camp. The event brought together 335 people, including fourth grade students from Tillamook County’s three public school districts, private schools, and home schools. In total, 223 students attended this year’s Festival! To support these students, 81 volunteers from over 25 local organizations led station activities, presented in the Exhibit Hall, or were tour guides that led classes to each activity, and more.
Throughout the day, students rotated through six 30-minute station rotations focused on themes all relating to the importance of clean water. Station topics included macroinvertebrates, marine debris, estuary birds, the water cycle, tidepool animals, and salmon migration. A new activity this year provided students with the opportunity to dissect owl pellets while learning about forest food webs.
One student wrote: “Today I learned about snowy plovers and macroinvertebrates. Without the Clean Water Festival, I would never have learned about these things!”
In response to the Macroinvertebrate Activity, one student wrote: “Today I learned that some insects live under water with gills and they breath under water.”
“Thank you for teaching me about owl pellets, the water cycle, and macroinvertebrates.”
Tillamook Estuaries Partnership is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation and restoration of Tillamook County’s watersheds through active stewardship, scientific inquiry, community engagement, and education. “This event is a huge collaboration, we simply could not do it without all of these people,” said TEP Deputy Director Claudine Rehn. “We are grateful for these partnerships that help us to carry out our mission by coming together to provide this unique opportunity for Tillamook County fourth graders to learn about the importance of clean water with their community’s support and encouragement.” The partnering local organizations and volunteers are a crucial part of making the Children’s Clean Water Festival an exciting and successful adventure, those partners include:
- Columbia River Maritime Museum
- Coos Bay Watershed Association
- Friends of Netarts Bay WEBS
- Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership
- Lower Nehalem Community Trust
- Neahkahnie High School Watershed Science Students
- North Coast Land Conservancy
- Oregon Department of Forestry
- Oregon Parks and Recreation Department
- Oregon Seaweed
- Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition
- OSU Extension Juntos Afuera
- Sammy’s Place
- Seaside Aquarium
- TC STEAM (Science Technology Education Art Mathematics) Coach Volunteers
- TEP Staff and Board Members
- Tillamook County Pioneer Museum
- Tillamook County Soil and Water Conservation District
- Tillamook County Visitors Association
- Tillamook Forest Center
- Tillamook School District Staff & Students
- Trout Unlimited Salmon Super Highway
- Twin Rocks Friends Camp Staff
- United States Coast Guard Auxiliary
- Dedicated TEP community volunteers
A focus of this year’s festival was to increase accessibility by providing more information to volunteers, students, and teachers in advance of the event about what to expect on the day of the festival. Activity descriptions and sensory information were provided leading up to the festival. Additionally, this year one of the cabins at Twin Rocks was available as the Quiet Space Cabin, for anyone to go to throughout the day to take a break. From the time students got off the bus, there were already people utilizing this space. Throughout the day, at least four students/adults utilized this area. Another new accessibility accommodation this year was the development of Sensory Backpacks. These backpacks included a weighted lap blanket, a pair of noise canceling headphones, different textured items, and fidget items, among other things. One backpack was in the Exhibit Hall; the other was in the Quiet Space Cabin. TEP received feedback that the items in these backpacks helped people relax and catch their breath. Also this year’s CCWF offered an expansion in bilingual activities to better serve Spanish-speaking students with three activities of the festival available bilingual English/Spanish included the: Salmon Game in the Exhibit Hall, Owl Pellet Dissection Activity and Marine Debris Game Activity
Students were asked to provide comments:
“Thank you for making this field trip one of the funnest field trips I’ve ever been to.”
TEP started the CCWF in Tillamook County in 2002. Since then, over 6,300 4th grade students have participated. For more on the history of the event: https://www.tbnep.org/programs/community-education-engagement/childrens-clean-water-festival/
