Salmon expedition brings learning to life

Oct. 22—Salmon expeditions have been a right of passage for area fourth grade students for years.

The South Yuba River Citizens League holds salmon expedition trips for schools throughout October and November to observe the migration patterns and life cycles of salmon while gaining a better understanding of local ecology.

Geared with life jackets and paddles, Yuba Feather Elementary School fourth grade classes boarded several rafts to observe the Yuba Watershed on Wednesday.

Through a grant from the Yuba Water Agency, the South Yuba River Citizens League is able to provide these river trips free of charge to students in the region.

Before embarking on the river, naturalists with the League visit a participating classroom to help introduce the curriculum centered around the expedition. River Education Manager Monique Streit said the League typically visits a classroom twice per unit.

"We go into classrooms before the field trip to teach about the salmon life cycle and the challenges they face throughout their lives," Streit said. "We then go back into classrooms after the field trip and have students create personal action plans on how they can change one behavior to have a more positive impact on the environment."

For Wednesday's group, Streit's team was only able to visit the classroom after the expedition due to the class joining late in the year.

The life cycle and watershed curriculum is still heavily incorporated into the trip through information delivered by rafting guides and three learning modules throughout the expedition.

Modules such as the "Impact of the Goldrush" take students off their rafts to observe how humans have impacted the river's flow and ecology over the years.

The Nisenan tribe cared for and inhabited the land for thousands of years. Streit said that the Nisenan were often called the "Salmon People" due to their relationship with the fish. Before the Gold Rush, over 300,000 salmon were observed to migrate through the Yuba River each spring.

As European settlers arrived and exacerbated the land for its resources, the health of the watershed dwindled and thousands of people in the Nisenan tribe were killed, Streit said.

Hydraulic mining during the Gold Rush caused further damage to the river that is seen to this day. Millions of cubic yards of gravel were washed down the river causing rapid weathering and erosion. To continue searching for gold, the settlers redirected the river's flow by creating large gravel training walls that are still seen today.

The number of salmon in the river has drastically decreased to around 3,000 each year, Streit said.

During this module, students were asked to build small dioramas of the river out of rocks found on the training walls to demonstrate how it has changed over the years.

In previous trips, Streit and other rafting guides used to recite a land acknowledgement and hold a moment of silence in recognition of the Nisenan tribe. The curriculum has since been changed slightly due to younger students being unable to fully grasp the topic of colonization.

The land acknowledgement is no longer read to the class, but the history of the Nisenan tribe is still incorporated into the module. Rather than holding a moment of silence, rafting guides instruct each group to participate in soundscaping, which requires students to close their eyes, be silent and listen to the nature that surrounds them.

This technique serves the same purpose as a moment of silence while also engaging students with their environment.

As students reboard their rafts, they are given an opportunity to search for different fish and wildlife in the watershed. Several students identified different birds, otters, salmon, carp and salmon redds or spawning pools during their trek through the river.

One of the final modules for the salmon expedition gives students an opportunity to be "real life ecologists," Streit said. Armed with magnifying glasses, thermometers and data sheets, kids are able to wade through the river shore in search of different insects that are crucial to the watershed's ecosystem.

Called benthic macroinvertebrates, or BMIs, these insects are a key indicator of the health of the river and what it can provide for the variety of animals that depend on it.

Students gathered in groups to overturn rocks in shallow areas of the river to inspect these insects. They were asked to determine the river's water quality based on the amount of certain insects they could find.

Some BMIs like stoneflies, caddisflies, and mayflies are very sensitive and can only live in streams with good water quality. Other organisms like worms and snails are not as sensitive and can survive in poor water quality.

During the last stretch of the expedition toward Sycamore Ranch, students were asked to reflect on ways to help improve the watershed and develop personal action plans. Streit said that this not only ties into the second half of the in-class salmon curriculum, but also provides students with an opportunity to develop solutions for issues that influence their lives.

"You can all have an impact. We want you all to walk away thinking about what we can do to support salmon and Native American tribes in our area," Streit said.