Youth Watershed Council

The Youth Watershed Council (YWC) program was created to inspire the next generation of environmental stewards by engaging area high school students in hands-on, place-based education, outreach and restoration within the watershed. The YWC consists of an annual cohort of 15-20 high school students who participate in an intensive summer workshop and engagements throughout the year. The program is designed to achieve the positive outcomes of preparing students to assume the mantle of environmental leadership and watershed stewardship through exposure to and engagement in five environmental arenas: Scientific Research, Environmental Education, Environmental Policy and Advocacy, Community Outreach, and Watershed Restoration.

MRWC staff works to center the program on student interests and to support their educational and vocational paths in the environmental sector by connecting youth with natural resource professionals. We engage youth with environmental issues and opportunities through experiential learning, service projects, and other efforts focused on deepening their knowledge of forest and river ecosystems, introducing them to the challenges of balancing human needs and ecological health, and strengthening social and community bonds within a diverse group of students and the broader community.

During the 2023 and 2024 summer YWC workshops, students explored forest and river ecosystems in multiple locations within the Marys River watershed and interacted with adults working in environmental fields. Highlights from the two workshops included exploring beaver ponds with a National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration scientist, birding with a US Forest Service ornithologist, exploring a restored oak woodland with a Greenbelt Land Trust environmental educator, cutting down invasive trees with an MRWC restoration manager, conducting chemical and biological water quality sampling with an OSU water resources graduate student, learning about river floodplains and water quality from a retired EPA water quality expert, and paddling down the Willamette River (a first canoe trip for many students) with Oregon State University Adventure Leadership Institute recreational leaders.

YWC students commit to participate for one year, including the four-day workshop and up to 12 activities during the school year. They have the option to continue in the program throughout their high school years, fostering relationships and mentorship within the program as veteran YWC members recruit their peers to participate, whether as future YWC members or in one of the YWC-led community projects. During the school year, YWC members have opportunities to continue learning through watershed ecosystem exploration hikes, ecology lectures, workshops on resume building, and other activities. They will give back to their community by serving as peer mentors for youth at environmental education events and practice reciprocity with the natural world by participating in habitat restoration efforts at local conservation and natural areas, as well as privately owned sites.

Youth Watershed Council members are exposed to and explore diverse arenas of environmental work and have opportunities to dive more deeply into the ones that interest them. YWC has community-wide impacts through the environmental education and outreach engagements of the students with area youth and the larger community, through their restoration efforts, and through the environmentally-informed perspective they carry with them throughout their lives. We anticipate that this program will help to encourage some students to enter environmental fields of study and work, and that all students will understand themselves to be stewards of the environment and of their communities.