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The Watershed Project

environmental education

Help Us Bring Back the Bay! | For Today, and Beyond

Dear Friends,

REEF1The Watershed Project has been bringing back the health of the San Francisco Bay one oyster reef ball and rain barrel at a time! This new year, we will make an even bigger splash in our local watersheds, and we need YOUR HELP.

With your contributions from last year, we deployed 100 oyster reef balls— built with 225 hours of volunteer help— near the pier at Point Pinole Regional Shoreline, started a zero waste lunch program at Fairmont Elementary, and we helped Oakland residents harvest 400,000 gallons of rain water!

Step up for the Challenge!

Our watersheds still need a helping hand, and now is the perfect opportunity to lend yours! Your year-end gift will make it possible for us to protect the health of the San Francisco Bay.

Fortunately, a small group of passionate watershed supporters have stepped up with a Dollar for Dollar Challenge Match. For every dollar you donate, they will donate another!

The Watershed Project is going to have a busy and fulfilling 2014. Next year, we will visit 1,000 students and encourage them to become watershed stewards, we want to help Oakland residents harvest more rainwater, and we need to start monitoring our new, flourishing oyster reef.

We couldn’t deliver great programs without help from friends like you. Consider making a gift to keep these top-notch, local environmental programs possible.

We’re helping the bay for today, and beyond!

Thank you from everyone at The Watershed Project.

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Working for Healthier Watersheds and People | Waste Matters Program Funded by the Environmental Protection Agency

By Diana Dunn

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I’ve been up since 3:30 a.m., and as I am looking at the distant glow of our nation’s capital building from my airplane window, I know I should try and get some sleep. But I can’t. I’m too excited! Too excited about the future of the environmental movement. Especially in regards to environmental justice movement.

The Watershed Project at its core is an outreach and education nonprofit organization. We take every opportunity we have to work alongside and collaborate with disadvantaged communities. Communities, like Richmond, that are not only exposed to legacy pollutants, but also face the problem of dealing with current industrial polluters as well. It is because The Watershed Project goes beyond caring about healthy watersheds, by also considering the people living in them, that we received an Environmental Justice grant from the EPA. As part of this grant, I had the opportunity to attend an EPA workshop in Washington D.C. and confer with other grant awardees. EPALogo

While there, I shared the work of The Watershed Project, and our new program Waste Matters. Waste Matters is a unique pilot program that will take place at Fairmont Elementary in El Cerrito. We will teach classes at every grade level using 4Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle and rot) curriculum. We will help develop the gardening and composting systems at the school, and we hope to reduce 50% of the waste being produced at the school.

It was great for me to hear about all of the other inspiring organizations that, like The Watershed Project, are working on the frontlines of the environmental and environmental justice movements. Twenty years ago, the environmental justice movement didn’t have a name, but it has grown significantly in its causes and impacts. While at the conference, the founders of the environmental justice movement including We Act organizer, Vernice D. Miller, told us of her triumphs and tribulations. She inspired us with her sense of pride and purpose for our united cause, reminding us that sometimes we become so entrenched in our pursuit, that it can be difficult to recognize our progress. But, if we take time to invest in ourselves and our community, by continually taking steps forward and coming to the table to speak with different stakeholders about our vision, we can transform our community and environment for the better.

As we embark on this new decade of the environmental justice movement I realize there is still a lot of work to be done.dcWe must work to not only preserve open spaces, but the human culture as well. We must work to rehabilitate our local watersheds and the people living within them. We must discuss our challenges, but also speak of our community treasures; whether they be our youth, elders, or natural resources. I believe through these efforts we can all play a part in transforming the frontline of the environmental and environmental justice movements into a network of ever-expanding concentric circles. Circles that will create outcomes of environmental equality for all.

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My First Watershed Project Workshop | An Intern Tells All


By Ken Schwab

Recently I traveled to San Francisco to join educators, professionals, and community members at a workshop presented by The Watershed Project whose focus was using award-winning teaching tools to bring awareness of healthy watersheds to our youth. Since I am new to the project, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

We met on the 5th of November at the Alice Fong Yu Elementary School in San Francisco. I was pleasantly greeted by The Watershed Project’s Public Programs Manager Martha Berthelsen, Education Coordinator Katy Brogan, and AmeriCorps Intern Diana Dunn. After chatting with these workshop leaders, I drifted over to a row of tables with displays, maps, field guides, a course reader, and many other watershed-related materials. “How cool is this?” I thought. The collection captured an array of topics that included local plant and vegetation, animal and marine life, how urban development and culture are shaping the planet, and opportunities to become involved in restoration.


As I was mingling before the workshop, the depth and breadth of teaching experience and expertise among fellow workshop participants struck me. I could tell that I was going to walk away from this workshop a better educator.

The core objective of the workshop was to take participants on a journey from mountaintop to upland habitats, creek ecology, marshes and marine debris. The first activity we learned was “Watershed in Your Hand”– a clever approach for kids to get a sense of how the dynamics of climate interact with watersheds. The class started by crumpling a piece of paper into a ball. As we carefully unraveled the ball, the terrain of our paper watersheds emerged. We marked the soil on the mountaintops, water in creeks, and urban development using colored markers. Then came the rain. In place of Mother Nature, we used squirt bottles and dowsed our watersheds with water. As the water flowed from the crumpled peaks to valleys of the paper, the colors blended together, demonstrating the interconnectedness of our waterways, homes, and environment.


The tour of the garden was remarkable. The school’s garden coordinator spoke of how students were eager to become involved even during recess. She also pointed out a shiny new rainwater harvesting system installed by The Watershed Project. Taking a moment, I began to appreciate the possibilities of watershed awareness projects in dense urban areas.

When it came time for lunch, we were surprised and thrilled to be provided with a delicious, home-cooked meal that was prepared and delivered by Executive Director Linda Hunter.

One section of the afternoon session exposed us to the Living Shoreline Initiative headed by Christopher Lim of The Watershed Project. He discussed the initial steps being taken to restore the native oyster population in the San Francisco Bay. I was amazed at the efforts currently underway to restore underwater ecosystems. He also emphasized the educational offerings, including free field trips for high school students!

At the end of the day, I walked away with an experience that was educational, entertaining, inspiring. I can’t wait to continue to get my hands wet in the world of environmental education.

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The Watershed Project Goes to Camp | Environmental Education Team Raises Watershed Awareness at Family Camp

By Chris Lim

Summer camp… full of warm, summer days amongst trees, mountains and, in this case, family. The Watershed Project recently sent its education team to Family Camp to stay in cabins in the woods, eat meals in a rustic mess hall, and teach families about their connection to the watershed.

Family Camp is a program of Youth Enrichment Strategies (YES) that serves families from Richmond, CA. Families enjoy a weekend at Camp Loma Mar in the foothills of Pescadero, a small coastal town south of Half Moon Bay. This year’s theme for the camp was “water” and YES asked us to provide our programming to almost 200 adults and young people over two separate weekends.


We were honored to participate and share our passion for watershed education. It was especially meaningful to speak with Richmond parents, an audience we don’t typically have the chance to address with our hands-on classroom activities. The connection went both ways; the families also gained the ability to connect with us, a local environmental nonprofit.

The full day in the woods began with the quintessential camp breakfast, pancakes and bacon. From there, the families ventured off to partake in the day’s activities. Our objective for the day was to show families that the daily environmental choices we make play a major role in the health of our watershed and community.


We assembled into small groups and began our program with “Watershed in Your Hand,” an activity that illustrates the concept of how rainfall in a watershed collects in a common area. Then “Trash Timeline” got the kids moving around and participating in an activity that demonstrates how long it takes household items, such as plastic bags, plastic bottles, glass bottles and Styrofoam, to biodegrade if left as litter on the street (in case you’re wondering, it takes 10-20 years, 450 years, 500 years and “never,” respectively). The final activity was our “Bug Safari” in the creek. The families, armed with boots, nets, trays and magnifying viewers, embarked on an outdoor expedition to find macroinvertebrates. The creek soon swelled with boots, yells of excitement, and trays jammed with critters.

Overall, it was a day bursting with connections: nonprofit to nonprofit, family to family, person to person, people to their environment. Family Camp is a wonderful program that connects urban families to the natural world around them. We were delighted to be a part of Family Camp and we look forward to the next opportunity we have to connect with local families.

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From One Watershed to Four | Riparian Lab Sprouts A Future


By Andy LaBar

When The Watershed Project introduced the Riparian Lab after-school creek ecology program in 2008, it was an attempt at something new and different. The Riparian Lab pilot program has grown like a weed over the past year, expanding from one site to four, all in different watersheds.

The program started at Booker T. Anderson recreation center, located along Baxter Creek in Richmond. Staff alternated between conducting lessons in the classroom and outside at the creek. In anticipation of the drop-in nature of an after-school program, the lab blended hard science like water quality testing and erosion experiments with fun, environmentally-themed games like “Predator Prey” and a tag game focusing on Bioaccumulation.


We started the growth by working along Wildcat Creek as it runs through Davis Park in San Pablo. Last year, that program shifted to be a part of the official after school program at nearby Dover Elementary. Twenty students attended the eight-week session, which culminates in a creek clean up. The Wildcat Creek Riparian Lab is continuing this spring, charged with a new group of 20 students and city plans to continue beautifying the creek with the help of proposition 84 funding.

In partnership with Lincoln Elementary and OASES, the Riparian Lab also expanded into Oakland. We focus our outdoor piece on Lake Merritt and the channel that leads past Laney College into the San Francisco Bay. By developing curriculum that the OASES staff can help lead, the students participating in this program will receive up to 32 creek lessons, rather than the 8-10 of most other programs. Additionally, students are documenting and reflecting on their experience with the lake by taking photos and writing haikus.


A fourth watershed was added to the program this past fall when we partnered with SPAWNERS and the El Sobrante Boys & Girls Club, located on Appian Creek. This program allows students to drop-in so as not to discourage irregular after-school program attendees to join in the fun. The program also encourages older students to take a leadership role in many activities.

What started out as an untested pilot has blossomed into a successful, exciting and evolving program. At each site, one of the students’ primary goals is to leave their creek in better shape than when they started, allowing students in each subsequent group to continue the improvements. From one watershed to four and with passionate students in tow, the Riparian Lab is extending The Watershed Project’s mission.

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