Starting in the 2011-2012 academic year, the Coos Watershed Association is offering the Master Watershed Stewards Youth Program. The semester-long program provides 8-12th grade students in the Coos Bay area with learning sessions, hands-on training, and service activities to learn about how watersheds affect our lives and our economy, and how individuals and organizations can influence aspects of the watershed.

Students will come away with:

• science knowledge
• stewardship principles
• technical skills
• high school science elective credit
• 3 college credits through Southwestern Oregon Community College (for ages 16 and older)
• community service hours

Students will also have the opportunity to learn about various careers in natural resources from local professionals, and about potential employment in the field of natural resources and watershed management.

The program will primarily be based at our Matson Creek Wetland Preserve east of Coos Bay, but will visit sites throughout the watershed. Students will be picked up and dropped off at Marshfield High School with a district school bus, and will have adult supervision at all times. There is no charge for the program and school lunches will be provided. For more information, please see our flyer and visit the program’s Facebook page for recent updates.

The first semester of the program will be kicked off in February 2012 and will run until June.

“Providing students with quality opportunities to directly experience the natural world can improve students’ overall academic performance, self-esteem, personal responsibility, community involvement, personal health and understanding of nature,” according to the Oregon Environmental Literacy Plan. The Master Watershed Steward Program for Youth will be a way to provide local students with learning opportunities in an outdoor classroom.

If you are interested in participating in the program or would like more information, please contact:

Bessie Joyce, CoosWA Outreach & Assessment Coordinator
541-888-5922, bjoyce@cooswatershed.org

A “watershed” is the area of land, from ridge to ridge, that ultimately drains to a particular body of water.  The “Coos watershed” is the area of land that drains through Coos Bay into the Pacific Ocean.  It includes all forks and tributaries of the Coos and Millicoma Rivers, and all of the sloughs and creeks that drain into Coos Bay.