Youth Watershed Council
As an expansion of our environmental education program, Marys River Watershed Council formed the Youth Watershed Council (YWC) in 2021. The program provides in-depth, place-based service-learning and environmental education opportunities to 15-20 high school students.
The YWC program commences with a summer workshop and continues through the year with opportunities to broaden their STEM, environmental stewardship and career development learning. Examples of these opportunities include hikes, bike tours and river paddle trips; opportunities for public speaking; restoration project planning and implementation; teaching field trip lessons to younger students; and other resume-building experiences and career talks with environmental professionals, community leaders and STEM professors.
Applications for the Youth Watershed Council program open in the Spring.
Connecting Students to Opportunities
The Gray Family Foundation (GFF), generously supports youth programs across Oregon, including our YWC program. They recently connected us with another of their partners, Outside the Frame, a Portland-based organization that teaches filmmaking and production to youth. This summer, Outside the Frame visited Corvallis to film our local students as they worked on restoration projects throughout the watershed. We’re thrilled to share the final video. Take a look and see what our young stewards have been up to out in the field!
Outside the Frame trains homeless and marginalized youth to be directors of their own films and lives. They have made other wonderful films and you can learn more about them on their website at Outsidetheframe.org and on their social media platforms at Otfpdx .