mollyrabus03

[mollyrabus03]

Sound Salmon Solutions: Education Intern - Molly Rabus

Hello everyone! This is Molly, and I am interning with Sound Salmon Solutions as one of their Education Interns.

Sound Salmon is a Salmon Conservation Non-Profit run out of Mukilteo, WA. Their office is about 10 minutes away from their actual hatchery, but along with everyone else at Sound Salmon, I do a lot of work in their office. It’s a pretty decent trip to Mukilteo every Thursday morning. I have to leave between 6:40-50 am in order to get there between 7-7:30 am. This has been quite the adjustment for someone like me who likes to stay up late and wake up late, but I am adjusted (sort of). Once I am there, I stay up here for an entire 10 hour work day! Brittany, my site supervisor, usually has some tasks for me once I get there, and then I leave to whatever elementary school we are teaching at that day. I drive to the school with another teacher, usually either Susan or Megan, and we usually have our first lesson at 9:30 am. After an hour lesson, we usually have a lunch break, and teach the second lesson at around 11 am-12 pm. We have three lessons we teach; lesson 1 which goes over basic salmon knowledge, ecology, and human interactions with the land in relation to salmon. Our second lesson is centered around an activity, or rather a model, that allows students to act as salmon journeying through the salmon life cycle. They find that it is VERY hard to be a salmon in this world, especially with human-made threats like dams, pollution, and over-fishing. I have seen many-a-tears in this game, but it is a really fun one to do (and of course the kids always love it). The third and final lesson is a wrap-up of what we have learned, leaving kids with the knowledge to be fantastic salmon stewards by educating others on the impacts on salmon and doing what they can to keep our waters clean.

 I have been to and helped teach at Spruce Elementary, Cherry Hill Elementary, Carnation Elementary, and Columbia Elementary. Overall, I would say that Carnation Elementary is my favorite school because I really enjoyed the teachers there. As a part of the Salmon In School’s program, many schools are granted a tank of Coho eggs to take care of for about 3 months, helping them to mature enough to be released into a local body of water (usually a creek system). The teachers at Carnation are amazing and treat/care for the salmon babies so well. It’s really amazing to see how much they care about their fish in light of having already so many responsibilities and tasks on their plates. When lessons are done, we head back to the office where I work on more tasks until 5 pm. One of the most common tasks that I’ve gotten very acquainted with, is testing the water quality of their tank, and completing a ~10 gal water change. I test the PH, Ammonia, Nitrate, and Nitrite levels. Since a tank is not able to naturally filter new water through, a water change is needed to keep the salmon at comfortable levels. The most common is a high PH, which is often what we have to remedy in schools with a PH balancing solution or a change in water. A large problem with school tanks was a high PH, and we found out it was because of their sink water being out of a normal range.

One interesting thing I’ve found out while working with my organization is how many women and non-binary folk are a part of this specific organization. As a woman, I immediately felt so safe and welcome. They are all super sweet and it has been nothing but lovely to me working in the same office. Additionally, they love to bring their dogs to work! It just gets better and better! My favorite dog has got to be Indigo, she is a sweet chocolate lab that loves to greet everyone and sleep in her little cot next to her owner’s desk. It is such an awesome vibe there and I am going to miss it so much.

One challenge I faced in my internship is just managing my time with SSS, my other classes, my capstone research, and my personal wellbeing. Burnout is something I’ve been struggling with, and it is especially more challenging to stay on top of things when seasonal depression is trying to pull me down. I’ve also been dealing with a lot of family stressors that have made it more difficult to stay on top of my game, but I am adamant that things will get better. I am receiving support from my site supervisor, P Sean, my faculty advisor, my friends and roommates, and my family. Things look a little daunting with it being week 8 and I have yet to complete data collection (interviews with teachers) but I am taking steps to make sure I get things done in time. Teachers are busy and don’t want to add extra stuff to their plates, but I am going to continue reaching out to a select few who are most likely to offer help (based on advice from Brittany) as well as my own connections to environmental educators I have interned with before (shout out to Kim and Chris from Wolf Camp). I am also keeping a calendar of important deadlines I need to hit in order to stay on top of my schoolwork, deliverable deadlines, and internship work.

Q1: Based on my research question, what do you feel are the best ways to teach the subject of climate change to elementary schoolers? Please elaborate on a time you feel that you were taught climate change in an effective and engaging way (whether it be elementary school, science camp, or a college class).

Q2: In light of Trump’s defunding of federal environmental organizations and the acceleration of climate change, how can nonprofits, such as Sound Salmon Solutions, better adapt to a changing political AND environmental climate? What will happen if we don’t take effective action, and what does effective action look like?

Pictured: Megan, one of the educators at Sound Salmon, showing me how to feed the fingerlings at the hatchery.

Pictured: Said fingerings are being counted and their weight measured to figure out how much they should be fed.

Pictured: Exciting stuff! (Apologies for the blurriness).